


there is a light that never goes out

by sadrobotgirl



Category: Heneral Luna (2015) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anal Sex, Friendship/Love, M/M, RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-25
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2019-07-17 07:48:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16091219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadrobotgirl/pseuds/sadrobotgirl
Summary: Mon/Epy - the hipster roommate au.





	there is a light that never goes out

**Author's Note:**

> REPOSTED for friends. This is a work of fiction, written for shits and giggles, originally posted at the height of my HL obsession (good times) back in 2015. Please do **not** redistribute or share with the people depicted in this story. That's just NOT cool and makes everyone uncomfortable. 
> 
> Also - heed the tags. This contains some NSFW content. You have been warned.
> 
> All mistakes/typos are mine lol.

Mon comes home after a 10 hour shift to an absolute sty of a living room. There are pillows everywhere and a minefield of assorted stuff on the floor: chips bags, an enormous bottle of Mountain Dew verging on empty, and what looks like half of the couch cushions arranged in a half-circle shape in a corner of the room. Game night, then. In the midst of all this tumult is the sleeping shape of Mon’s roommate – Epy – curled up comfortably under the coffee table, clutching a PS3 controller to his chest. The TV is still on, and whatever game that’s been playing, put on pause now, bathes Epy in a soft dreamlike glow.

Mon turns the light on in the hall as he carefully wends his way through all the crap, dropping his grocery bags en route to the kitchen where he pours himself a glass of water from the fridge. When he pads back to the living room, he turns the lamp on, then squats next to Epy to tug the controller out of his loose grip.

“ _Hng_ ,” Epy says, unwilling to part from it. He keeps his eyes closed the whole time before making another garbled sound, this time swatting blindly at Mon until Mon gets the hint and climbs back to his feet, nudging him gently on the shoulder with his toe.

“You’re gonna regret sleeping on the floor, you know,” Mon tells Epy, because this isn’t an isolated occurrence. If he sounds irritated, it’s probably because he’s tired. Work has been hell lately, and his boss keeps razzing him about every little mistake.

Epy doesn’t respond for another minute so Mon takes it upon himself to drag him from underneath the coffee table before he does something stupid, like hit his head on a corner. He heaves Epy up to a sitting position; Epy smells like he’s had a bit to drink which means nothing will jar him to wakefulness so Mon is free to slide his arms around his shoulders and under his knees to lift him, staggering, off the floor. He does it in fits and starts but he manages to carry Epy back to bed with little incident, sidestepping the jungle of PS3 wires on the floor and ornate ashtrays filled with wrappers of candy.

Epy’s room is dark but Mon is familiar enough with the layout that he can easily tell where Epy’s bed is. Mon deposits Epy on top of the covers, pulling the comforters up to his chest, leaving the door open partway. Light from the hallway spills across the mauve carpet of Epy’s room, slicing sharply through the enveloping darkness. Mon peers inside and looks, at Epy’s sleeping face, pale and honey-smooth in the dark, at the immoveable shape of him snoring softly under the comforters. He doesn’t leave the door for another minute.

*

Mon’s initial impression of Epy had been that he’s … _unique_ to lack a better term, and if they’d ever lived during pre-colonial times, his tribe would’ve probably flung him off a cliff and been done with it. He isn’t, strictly speaking, the brightest bulb in the box, daft as he is to the point of naiveté. He did well enough in school, if the accolades on his shelf were anything to go by, but he lacked any sort of real world skills. But put him in the middle of a busy intersection and he’d probably find his way to the nearest Starbucks. He studied… art… or something, back in university, and got a multimedia job straight after graduation before he was let go six months later.

Nowadays he simply hung around his condo, making his money off selling expensive music memorabilia he’d inherited from his dad. He still got a monthly stipend from his parents, which supplemented his income, but the money still wasn’t enough to sustain what he liked to call his _bohemian_ lifestyle. He’d rented out the extra room in his condo – more of a closet than a room, really – which was how Mon had come to live with him, lucking out on Epy’s ad on OLX.

The rent was affordable even though the neighbourhood was expensive, but other than Epy’s sporadic sleeping patterns, his penchant for bingeing on procedural dramas, and questionable taste in clothes, Mon didn’t have anything to complain about. Epy was…different. He was…unique. As far as roommates went, he was all right.

And they live, still, distinct lives.

*

The first time they meet, Mon is late to the condo viewing because he’d slept through two of his alarms.

“Oh,” Epy says when he opens the door and sees him. “It’s you. Are you here about the room?”

“Hey,” Mon says, and takes a step back to check the hallway. He stares down at the note in his hand, the ink blurred by the sweat in his palm. Unit 204. He wants to make sure he has the right address. The lady at the front desk said the unit belonged to a Jeffrey, and the guy in front of him definitely does not look like a Jeffrey. He has a tattoo on his right hand and the whiskery beginnings of a goatee. The wifebeater he’s wearing hangs off his reedy frame like a rag, the material thin and threadbare Mon can almost see the outline of a nipple ring. Interestingly, he’s wearing a striped beanie.

 

Epy ushers him inside. “Come on in then,” he finally says. The living room is a mess. Frankly, Mon didn’t expect anything less. Every inch of the floor is covered in an assortment of junk: clothes tossed about, books, mountains of CDs. A 50 inch flat screen television makes its home in the center of the room. There’s a MacBook on the coffee table open to Adobe Lightroom.

 

Epy types something in the keyboard and the monitor flickers to screensaver mode, showing a landscape of black and white hills. Epy neatly sidesteps the clutter, grabbing his iPone enroute to the the.  Mon notices for the first time that he’s walking around on his bare feet.

 

“The room is right here,” Epy says, pointing down the hallway. It’s no bigger than a closet, with some elbow room for a desk and a double bed. The drawers have been gutted. The only window in the room is screened with a mesh of dirty floral curtains. As far as rooms go, it’s a step up from what Mon’s used to:  there aren’t any leaky pipes in the ceiling or several crayon streaks running down the sides of the walls. In his old apartment, he can hear it whenever his neighbours flush.“Anyway,” Epy says, as if that settles it. He rests his hands on his hips and whistles. “Here it is.” His eyebrows raise hopefully.

Mon has been to several apartment viewings before and none of them are in neighbourhoods he feels safe in. There are no dogs barking incessantly outside or someone’s prized rooster pecking hungrily at the window, or neighbourhood drunks carousing till dawn. The AC seems to have a noise problem; rattling away as it sputters cold air in percussive hisses.

 

“I’ll take it,” Mon says abruptly. Epy startles and turns to look at him. “Really?” he laughs. He squints at Mon, like he’s trying to be sure Mon won’t change his mind.

“Well, that’s a relief,”Epy says, scratching at his chin. “Normally people run around screaming after they see how filthy the place is.” He swipes a thumb across the wall before rubbing his fingers together as if to exemplify his point.

 

“How soon before I can move in?” Mon asks.

 

*

 

After looking at a number of real estate ads online, Mon supposes the unit is too good to be true. Of course, Epy isn’t the best roommate in the world, or the best landlord – he seems to think Mon is his indentured servant, there to vacuum the living room on the weekends he isn’t working and do the groceries when the fridge and cupboards are empty.

Epy’s only contribution to household chores is doing the dishes – on the rare occasion he deigns to do them. After the dishwasher broke down, he was forced to do the washing up when Mon had pointed out over dinner that he never did anything around the house. Where Mon grew up, they had none of this newfangled technology to sanitize the dishes for them; they didn’t even have a microwave. His mother and sister had to fetch water from a pump, and they did all the washing by hand. Epy is lazy but he isn’t unfair so eventually albeit begrudgingly he agrees to do some of the chores.  Every now and then Mon spies him humming at the sink, elbow deep in sudsy water, bobbing his head to music bleeding through earbuds plugged into his ear – a vision to behold.

 

When Epy isn’t lounging about fiddling with Photoshop and editing a vast number of pictures he’s taken of buildings and skies, he’s off drawing or painting or watching movies on his laptop. He leaves his room unlocked for the most part, which has caused Mon to walk in on him a few times doing something he probably shouldn’t be caught doing in polite company. It’s taught Mon the value of knocking first before entering. It’s taught him, too, that Epy has more tattoos than he lets on, a teardrop shape just above the jut of his hipbone.

 

 

*

Often their lives intersect, like when the fridge is empty and it’s time for Mon to do a grocery run. Epy hardly eats anything Mon doesn’t put in front of him, as he’s too cheap to call for takeout, though he seems to always have money to splurge on coffee. “Two things in life make me happy,” he’d told Mon once while waiting in line at a Starbucks. “Art and iced macchiatos.” That actually explains why he’s so lean – when Mon had first moved in, there was nothing but tins of biscuits in the cupboard and stale cereal. Also he could barely see the floor because of all the crap that Epy liked to leave lying around.

Weekends are sacred for Mon, because he works more hours than is strictly legal, so it’s a complete hassle for him to be out of bed any time earlier than 9AM. But he’s a _probinsyano_ by heart, what’s more a Cebuano, and if there’s anything his mother has taught him it’s the importance of not shirking from your duties. Epy has a jar of loose change in the living room in five and ten peso denominations that Mon often uses for jeep fare but this morning he doesn’t feel like commuting to the local Cash  & Carry. He knocks at Epy’s door even though it’s already open halfway, affording Mon a view of the bed.

Epy is sprawled on his stomach, cocooned in comforters like a burrito, one leg sticking out like the Wicked Witch from Oz. On his walls are posters of classic movies some of which Mon thought, when he’d first moved in, sounded a lot like titles of pornos: _The 400 Blows, Midnight Cowboy, Rear Window,_ and _Peeping Tom._ But Epy was into that kind of thing: films, and warbly operatic music, and making art (he painted, drew, designed his own t-shirts, owned a variety of film cameras), and his entire room was testament to this, filled with many odd bits and bobs that spoke of his obscure interests: paintbrushes, a wooden easel, a shelful of Criterion Collection Movies, a rotary phone on the nightstand.

Mon’s room is the smallest in the condo, second only to the kitchen: just a double mattress in the corner with a red duvet, a two-tier drawerful of clothes, a desk, an air conditioner rattling in the corner window. The windowsill groaned under the weight of accumulated crap: bonsai pots, books, the consolation trophy Mon had won in an amateur poetry competition ten years ago. It was, in comparison, pretty dull.

Mon knocks again, louder this time, until Epy lifts his head and squints at him, looking confused. His hair is an absolute static mess but it’s not like it’s ever seen a brush in its life. “I’m going out,” he announces. “Gonna grab some groceries as there’s no food in the fridge. _Again_. You wanna come?”

“You woke me up for that?”

Mon resists the urge to sigh and roll his eyes. Between the two of them, only Mon ever goes out to buy real food. Epy thinks he can subsist entirely on a diet of coffee and pot noodles which explains why he’s reed-thin and pale like fish; he only goes out at night to parties populated by unsavoury people.

“Samahan mo na ako, kinakain mo din naman mga binibili kong pagkain.”

When Epy just continues to lie there with his eyes closed, Mon appends, “I’ll cook you whatever you want for dinner tonight. And, I’ll pay for gas.” That gets Epy’s attention and he immediately perks up, propping up a forearm and leaning his cheek on a fist. He blinks slowly, then begins to yawn. “Pad thai ah. Masarap yung luto mo nung dati.”

“Masarap naman talaga ako magluto kahit kailan,” Mon tells him.

Epy just smiles sleepily because it’s true. “Five minutes, then we can leave,” he promises.

*

An hour later, and Epy is finally ready, in pajama bottoms and a rumpled grey hoodie with the hood pulled over his baseball cap because he can’t be bothered brushing. He resembles a zombie, groaning as the car pulls up into the harsh light of day and scrabbling for his sunglasses on the dashboard to shield his eyes. Mon looks on, amused, strapping on his seatbelt, checking and re-checking the grocery list in his hand.

Epy tends to get sidetracked and buy junk they don’t need, like screwdrivers or massive jars of cookie dough he eats while he’s marathoning _Breaking Bad_. They’re operating on a limited budget so Mon has to take the lead when they eventually step into the store, grabbing only the important stuff, like bread, milk, and coffee. His family didn’t have much, growing up, so he knows his way around discounts and knock off brands that taste and look like the real thing. He lets Epy man the shopping cart, following him from aisle to aisle and earning strange looks from passersby because of his getup.

“I’m getting the feeling that kid in the breakfast aisle was staring at me,” Epy tells him while they’re in line to pay for all their stuff. Mon is keeping watch over the cash register, making sure they don’t go over their 2000-peso limit. “Hmm?” he says, distractedly. Epy just shrugs and wanders to the next stall, before tossing a multi-pack of Gilette Razors on top of their pile of purchases.

When Mon gives him a look, Epy just shrugs again, blushing. “I kind of dropped your razor in the toilet last week. You didn’t shave recently, did you?”

Mon touches his cheek self-consciously, feeling a twitch in his left eye. “No,” he says levelly. And then: “Were you ever going to tell me?”

Epy grins, ducking his head which could mean any number of things. Mon, not knowing how to interpret it, just sighs and cuffs Epy gently on the shoulder, tugging at the brim of his cap to hear him squawk and giggle indignantly. “Oi!”

*   

Whenever they have enough for lunch money, Mon makes sure the grocery change goes to good use; he treats Epy to lunch in the food court, where they feast on whatever their budget can afford: hot Styrofoam bowls of lugaw, or sisig, or Vigan empanada from a stall worth 50 pesos each. There are cheap meals for 90 pesos that come with free drinks, from stalls that sell chicken parts as big as a man’s fist. Normally, because Epy is on a Vegan diet, whatever that even means, he’ll refuse to step foot in a food court. He has standards, he’ll say. Do you know how food there is prepared, he’ll say. But lately Mon is finding it easier to convince him to do things that take him out of his comfort zone, like eat tinapa, for example, or watch foreign films that don’t need subtitles.

“This fish was once alive,” Epy complains. “But damnit it tastes so good.”

Mon laughs at him through a mouthful of rice. At their feet sit bags of groceries – two weeks’ worth which will mean Mon doesn’t have to worry about coming home one night and finding Epy passed out on the floor from hunger with a caramel macchiato gripped in one hand because he’d been too cheap to buy actual food instead.

Epy’s doffed his cap and lowered his hood, which means his hair is standing in wild tufts around his head, a bird’s nest for all to see. He has a pale and pointy face, ears that stick out. But his smile is soft, and his eyes are friendly, and sometimes Mon thinks about him at work when his shifts drag longer than they should, and that’s enough. He tells himself that’s enough. Mon nudges Epy under the table with the point of his shoe and Epy rolls his eyes at him before nudging back, licking at the tines of his fork.

*

Mon is invited to an art exhibition on his first month of rooming with Epy. He finds a ticket pinned on the corkboard that’s set next to the fridge, under a collection of unpaid Meralco bills and a polaroid of some kid – Epy, probably – screaming his head off as he blows on his birthday cake. The show isn’t until after work, between 4 PM to 9 PM, which means Mon going is a definite possibility.

The venue is in Cubao, not too far from Mon’s place of work that the commute will be expensive; he can always just take the MRT anyway.

Mon figures he ought to make the effort of getting to know his roommate/landlord but he puts the art show in the backburner for now to focus on the multitude of things going on in his life, namely the number of deadlines to projects that seem to be piling up all at once.

On the date of the actual show, he’s surprised to be released early from work with enough time to go out drinking with friends should he choose to accept their invitation. Instead, he takes the MRT to Cubao where he elbows his way with hardly any mercy through the sea of people queuing at the turnstiles.

The exhibit is in a reputable part of the city, on the third floor of a gutted industrial building, and it’s evident even early on that Mon will have a difficult time looking like he fits in with his office garb and striped tie. If he were the type to care about that type of thing, which he isn’t, he’d have turned tail and run. As it stands he cannot give any more of  a crap if he gets mildly discomfited stares from a bunch of college kids dressed to the nines. He’s never been to an art gallery before so he doesn’t know what to expect, but part of the reason he’s here is to see Epy in his element.

It’s opening night The gallery is hosting a number of artworks inspired by films; there’s a section dedicated to _Wes Anderson_ , the name recognizable only because Mon has seen the wealth of Anderson-related memorabilia Epy has on his shelf. Mon finds Epy in the Kubrick section, dressed like a character from  _A Clockwork Orange_  in a white oxford shirt and pants, and a black bowler hat. He’s wearing suspenders. Sweeping his lower right eye is a strip of fake eyelashes.

Epy lifts his head once he sees Mon approach, taking a swig out of a bottle of wine before setting it down on the table next to him where a mountain of fliers is sitting next to a tray of drinks.

“Hey,” he says, tucking his hat under his arm. “You came!”

Mon shrugs, adjusting the strap of his messenger bag. It’s only 6:45. He’s not entirely sure why he came here straight from work when he could have gone home to nap first or change. “Thanks for inviting me,” he says. “I’ve never been in an art show before; I wanted to see what it was like.”

 

“Well,” Epy laughs. He spreads out his arms to indicate the expanse of the room. “Welcome. It isn’t much but it’s… something. My friends left to eat but I can show you around if you like.”

 

Mon nods. He takes a cursory look around: people dressed more funkily than he’s accustomed to, taking on the pretense of preoccupation. Half of the crowd is on the phone or taking pictures of the works showcased. Whenever someone enters the room people turn around to see who it is.

Mon lets Epy lead him from room to room, talking as he goes and chatting animatedly about the films that inspired some of the works. Mon spends thirty seconds judging each one. Some of them are copies of classic works he should probably be familiar with, canvas paintings of pastoral landscapes, tophatted men in libraries, and sullen Dutch farmgirls sitting behind old country houses.

There’s a painting of the characters from  _Ocean’s Twelve_ depicted as Christ’s twelve apostles seated at a casino table. In another work, the two characters from  _In The Mood for Love_ recreate a scene from  _Roman Holiday_  where Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck take that bike ride in the city. And then there’s Epy’s work: an oil painting of what looks like a vast crowd separating two people. One of them is a girl in a red hat, her slender neck craned like she’s looking for someone in the crowd. The painting is called  _River Road._

“After a song,” Epy claims. “Have you ever heard of Nancy Wilson?”

Mon shakes his head. He runs his eyes over the painting, studying every detail. “It’s beautiful,” he tells Epy after a moment. It’s an honest assessment, though he’s not sure if the opinion is coloured by his bias. Epy never ceases to impress. 

Epy lets out an embarrassed laugh, ducking his head shyly as he rubs at the back of his neck. “Thanks,” he says. “My friend Lyle says it’s too mainstream, but I love the film it’s based on even though it was panned by critics when it came out. Have you ever liked anything a lot of people hated?”

“All the time,” Mon jokes. 

Epy smiles. This time it reaches its eyes. “One of these days I’ll make you watch the film. It’s about this guy who—”

Epy is cut off by his phone buzzing in his pocket. He holds up a finger, excusing himself to pick up the call. Mon watches him from the corner of his eye, hearing snippets of conversation as Epy’s voice rises in pitch and tone. “Of course I haven’t – no, I thought you guys would pick me up – yes, Lyle, I know. I didn’t say – well, shit, fine, all right. Whatever. Have fun.”

“Everything all right?” Mon asks as Epy pockets his phone.

“It’s just my friends. I was going to hitch a ride with them home but it appears they’ve got other plans that don’t involve me and aren’t in the mood to see this show through.”

“I’m sorry they’re—”  _Assholes_ , Mon thinks. “Being difficult.”

Epy waves a hand. “Doesn’t really surprise me; they do this all the time.”

“Leave you hanging?”

Epy shrugs, hugging his arms to his chest, and doesn’t answer. He kicks a spot in the carpet, wearing a groove with the point of his boot – keeps his eyes to the painting of a little house set in a field of daisies. Below it, _Eternal Sunshine,_ and the artist’s name _Lyle Mercado._

“So you’ll be here till closing then?” Mon asks.

“I guess so,” Epy sighs.

Mon hesitates. “Do you need company?”

Epy flicks his eyes up immediately. “Oh, no, you don’t have to – _wait_ , are you offering?”

“Well, I don’t have to be in till 9AM tomorrow, and I’m not particularly tired,” Mon says evasively. “I guess I can stick around.” He pockets his hand, clenching it and unclenching it, not sure why he’s suddenly feeling nervous.

In the end he stays until 9 pm, helping Epy pack up afterwards. Epy doesn’t sell a single work but he assures Mon that’s nothing new to him, either. The more mainstream a work of art is, the more popular the appeal. “Besides,” he adds. “I’m not here to sell anything at all; I’m here for the experience.” He says only the ephemeral is of lasting value while knocking back about a third of the wine before handing the bottle back to Mon with a burp.

In the three hours that Mon spends at the gallery he comes to two realizations: one is that art is a serious business and there are some people like Epy who make a serious effort to leave a mark in their world. The second is that Mon has no business judging what constitutes good art or bad art. For the last half hour, he’s been wandering the gallery, raising his eyebrows at nude art and abstract paintings.

Still, he knows what he likes and that’s Epy’s work out of all of them - not the best in terms of composition or style but he likes the way Epy lights up when he starts talking about how he came up with the concept. It’s clear he enjoys what he’s doing. The guy has so much passion it’s a small wonder how his enthusiasm can be contained in that small body of his without leaking out of his pores.

They walk out the gallery shoulder to shoulder, talking amiably as the lights behind them flicker shut in time for closing. This is the first time they talk outside of the confines of the condo – normally they ask each other the requisite questions: how each other’s day has been, if either one of them wanted to order out, whose turn it is to clean the bathroom. It’s surprising to find that conversation between them is almost effortless, like slipping into old clothes.

Epy complains of a hungry stomach so Mon suggests a tapa place nearby where the fried rice is unlimited and the server has a generous pour of beer. Epy doesn’t have money, he says he’s always broke these days because art materials don’t come cheap, so Mon promises to treat him after taking a brief gander at the contents of his wallet. “As a congratulations for a successful opening night,” he says with a slight lump .

“Successful,” Epy snorts and throws his head back. “That’ll be the day!” But he blushes when Mon puts a hand between his shoulderblades, ducking his head as Mon leads him out the door.

Later, they flag down a cab, too lazy to take the last MRT home and too exhausted to muster the strength to walk all the way to the station. On the walk back to the condo, it starts to pour, rain slicing through the headlights of passing cars. Mon picks up his pace, lifting his jacket over his head as the light changes from green to red and they cross the street.

“Thanks,” Epy tells him when Mon joins him on the sidewalk. His clothes are damp with rain, near-translucent in the soft light of the street.

“For what?” Mon asks, confused.

“For coming to the show tonight,” Epy says with a roll of his eyes. “For the tapa. And the beer. And--” he shrugs, stopping mid-sentence as rain starts to come down hard and the sky issues a series of thunder claps. He shakes his head before clapping Mon on the shoulder before giving him a well-aimed but good-natured shove. “Just – thanks in general,” he tells Mon, before squinting his eyes at the sky: “Ah, rain’s coming down pretty hard. Race you home, huh,” he says. “What do you say? Last one there will have to take out the trash for a week.”

“But I always take out the trash,” Mon says wryly. “What difference will it even make?”

Epy starts walking backwards, hands on his pockets, laughing. “Touché.”

*

Turns out, Epy has another hobby too, besides trash talking Michael Bay movies and queuing for caramel macchatios at Starbucks at one in the morning. He likes compiling music. He and Mon listen to vastly different genres that can’t be more opposite than each other but Mon will concede that every now and then something good comes out of Epy’s many and varied playlists. Most of the time it’s just one guitar and a whole lot of whining, but his music collection isn’t entirely crap.

Epy makes Mon a MIX CD one day after Mon complains of a stressful couple of weeks at work. Mon isn’t expecting it, hunched over a report at the kitchen table and rubbing the ache between his eyes with his thumbs. He has impossible to meet deadlines, and his mother has just phoned last night asking if he could send money her way for a distant relative’s funeral. He hates being an adult. Sometimes it feels like the problems keep piling up. He wishes he didn’t have to deal with shitty people all the time but he’s starting to realize that life is going to be full of doing things that you hate because that’s what it means to be a grown up.

Epy pats him placidly on the arm. When Mon raises his eyebrows at him skeptically, Epy wordlessly slides a CD across the table. He’s made a cover for the CD – a grainy printout of a picture he’s taken himself, the view outside a car window: blue sky and an endless stretch of trees,  **CLAP YOUR HANDS AND SAY YEAH!** in a neat typeface.

“Made this for you last night. Listen to it when you have the time,” Epy says. It isn’t the first time he’s attempted to impose his music tastes on Mon though his methods tend to lean toward  the extreme. “Then tell me what you think.” He leaves to binge-watch Alfred Hitchcock movies in the living room. Mon slides the CD into the DVD tray of his company-issued Dell laptop.

The thing is ancient, issuing a series of worrying beeps, before letting out a soft whirr as Windows Media Player reads the tracks on the CD. A window pops up, telling him he should update his player. Mon ignores it as usual, in favour of clicking on the first track on the list:  _Alex Turner_  -  _It’s Hard To Get Around The Wind._ He hums along a few times, jogging his leg up and down. The song is soothing; he almost falls asleep at his chair.

When the playlist finishes an hour later, he folds his laptop closed to join Epy in the living room. Epy lifts the bowl of popcorn in his lap as an offering but Mon waves him away and sinks next to him on the couch, nudging Epy’s legs aside to make room. The popcorn smells like old feet but Mon doesn’t really mind even when Epy sits up to deposit the bowl of the stuff in his lap. Mon scoops a handful and pours three into his mouth. He picks the kernel that falls on his shirt and chews thoughtfully.  

“What are we watching?” he asks, propping his feet on the coffee table. His elbow brushes Epy’s arm but Epy doesn’t move away or elbow him back so they say comfortably pressed together, the sides of their legs touching.

“Rear window,” Epy says with a chuckle, without looking at him or blinking.

“Isn’t that one where the guy spies on all his neighbours?” Mon asks.

When Epy nods, Mon says, “Sounds a little bit like you.”

Epy just looks at him before cuffing his knee lightly. “Oi, shut up. I’m not that creepy.”

Mon laughs at him and drops his head on the back of the couch. Epy keeps his eyes trained to the television in rapt attention even though this isn’t the first time he’ll be watching _Rear Window_. Occasionally, he’ll recite some of the lines in a deep voice and smile to himself when he gets them right.

For some reason, Mon finds himself watching Epy instead of the movie. Light from the TV ghosts over his face in glossy flashes. And strangely enough, it makes Mon want to reach over and touch Epy’s hair. It takes a great deal of effort on Mon’s part to stay on his side of the lumpy couch; it takes even a greater deal not to fall asleep to the soothing cadence of Epy’s voice as he repeats the words to the scene: _Why would a man leave his apartment three times on a rainy night with a suitcase and come back home three times?_

Easy, Mon thinks, right before he falls asleep. He’s seen this movie enough times to predict the next lines: _he likes the way his wife welcomes him home._

*

Epy schedules Game Night on Saturdays and depending on the availability of his friends. Sometimes he invites Mon to the tradition – halfhearted attempts that don’t go over Mon’s head, he knows when he’s clearly not wanted – giving Mon enough notice so Mon knows how to go about the rest of his day. Often times, he stays cooped up in his room, sleeping, or he heads out to the mall to treat himself to a movie and do a little bit of shopping. Occasionally, he’ll go to a friend’s house to drink and hang out, or vent about work.

Tonight isn’t one of those nights.

He’s feeling a little crabby because of spillover work, so he isn’t in the best mood to indulge Epy’s friends who are lounging about in the living room talking loudly over the game. There’s food everywhere: chips and boxes of pizza spread across the carpet. The windows are open because one of them is smoking even though Epy has always been strict about smoke tipping off the alarms.

The thing about Epy’s friends: they’re stuckup assholes. It isn’t like Mon to judge anyone but he’s talked to a few of them before and it’s obvious they think they’re better than everyone else. One of them – a Lyle – thought he was Epy’s house help and had given him money to buy them beer. Another had asked what school he was from, trying to place where he’d seen Mon’s face before because it seemed familiar.

Mon leaves before he loses it completely and kicks any of their asses. He heads to a coffee shop to finish his report, not a Starbucks which is usually crowded this time of the day, but one of those hole in the wall Korean coffee shops that serve frozen sandwiches along with their Oolong tea.

The corner table is one of Mon’s favourite places in the coffee shop; the lighting is good, the rosy haze of pre-dusk sunlight sifting through the glass windows, highlighting specks of dust. It’s always less crowded on a weekend on account of college kids being home and them being the shop’s target demographic. The corner table is just out of the barista’s eye-line, partially hidden by a magazine rack which means Mon can nap whenever he pleases or not buy anything for a few hours and not get called out.

He’s the last one to leave before closing, packing up his laptop and a folder of files. When he comes back to the condo, Epy is sorting out the mess his friends have left in the living room. There are iridescent slivers lying all over the floor next to the controller, remnants of whatever game they’d just played, it seems like, broken in little bits and pieces. When Mon asks Epy what had happened, Epy just shrugs and gets off his knees, stuffing pizza boxes into the black garbage bag he’s dragging around. He looks tired even though it’s barely midnight.

Mon hangs his messenger bag on the hat stand before proceeding to help him out. The entire living room stinks of cigarettes and stale food. The couch has been completely denuded, the floor strewn with cushions. They finish tidying up half an hour later, though mostly it’s because Mon has given up and Epy has started to stare at the wall, dropping to a sprawl next to Mon on the couch with his arms crossed in front of his chest. Something is nagging at Mon to press for questions, but he manages to stop himself in time. In the end, he pats Epy on the knee until Epy cocks his head at him, startled, blinking out whatever daze he’d been in like he’s only realized Mon is sitting next to him too. “I lost my dad’s guitar to a bet,” he says in a voice devoid of emotion.

“What bet?” Mon sits up.

“A very stupid one,” Epy snorts. “We were playing this game and I thought I’d win but obviously I should’ve known better. Never play while you’re inebriated.” Epy shakes his head at himself.

“Why not ask for the guitar back, then?” Mon prompts. “Your friend should know how important it is to you if it belonged to your dad.”

Epy looks at Mon, really looks at Mon, for what feels like the first time. He doesn’t blink for a while but the effect is a little less unnerving when he’s got a tiny streak of ketchup across his cheek that Mon is tempted to swipe off with the pad of his thumb. A lock of hair has fallen across his forehead, curling like a comma.

“And go back on my word?” Epy shakes his head again. “No, no, we made a bet. I lost fair and square. There’s no going back.”

Somehow that startles a laugh out of Mon. He feels annoyed all of a sudden, always with a shorter fuse in times of stress. He doesn’t know whether he’s frustrated with Epy or his friends, or himself for not saying anything all this time. Or, why it even matters so much. But he has the strongest urge to take Epy by the shoulders and shake some sense into him, yell in his face: wake up, open your eyes and look around you! These people are shit! “Why do you let them do this to you?” he blurts out.

Epy tilts his head at him in question. “Do what?”

“Treat you like shit, what else?” Mon says. It feels kind of great to air out the words when he’s been wanting to say them for the longest time possible. “All night I watched these people treat you like shit. Meanwhile you just stand there and let them walk all over you. You deserve better than this, you deserve better friends.”

“You don’t understand,” Epy begins to say, but Mon doesn’t give a moment and instead cuts him off: “Then make me. Explain why.”

Something in Epy’s face shifts but Mon can’t tell what it is. Epy sits up straighter, taking on a defensive posture, all walls raised now in time for every blow. Mon has only seen him discomfited two times before: once when Epy’s stepdad had called him in the middle of breakfast, and another time when Epy had found out the job he wanted was already taken by someone else after a month of following up on the results of his interview.

“I’m not like you, Mon. I don’t walk into a room liked by everyone else and then walk out with new friends. That just isn’t me.”

“I’m not like that,” Mon argues. “You don’t even know me.”

“I know you well enough,” Epy says, not breaking his stride. “We’ve lived together under one roof for five months.”

“Is that how long it takes to really know somebody?” Mon asks. People can surprise you, he knows, with the little things. Epy does it everyday. And people are mutable, they change within the course of an hour or a day. But it’s the little details that kill you, that tend to pull the rug from under your feet – sparks of romance, of pathos, even in the most humdrum of lives.

“Who knows,” Epy says with a shrug. “Maybe I’m just drunk.” He stands to his feet and staggers, before flopping back on the couch with a thump. “All right, I _am_ drunk.” His laugh is tinged with an unnameable emotion, a hitch in his next breath. After a bout of silence during which Mon can hear the steady hum of the airconditoner and the rush of traffic winding down outside, Epy turns to look at him again. He sighs, touching Mon on the elbow which prompts Mon to look.

“They’re my friends,” Epy tells him. “I’ve known most of them since college. We met through a mutual love of subtitled films.” He smiles to himself, like he’s recalling the memory. “They were really cool; they were the first friends I made after high school, you know. And we’ve been pack ever since.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” Mon says. It’s left hanging in the air: _why do you let them do this to you?_

Epy smiles but it doesn’t reach his eyes. There’s a visible twitch in his jaw. He keeps smoothing the creases in his shirt – a habit born of nervousness, probably. His hands won’t stop moving, restless like hummingbird wings. If Mon were bold enough, if they weren’t having this conversation, he’d have grabbed them and held onto them until they stopped shaking. But they’ve only known each other for five months, and Mon is still on thin ice.

“Nothing gets past you, does it?” Epy picks at a thread sticking out of his shirt. “It hardly matters now, anyway. It’s just a stupid guitar and I’m being overly sentimental. And it isn’t as if my dad can get pissed about it. He’s been dead for years.”

“You don’t have to lie,” Mon says. He knows, from the way Epy talks about his dad sometimes, that they used to be close, that out of all Epy’s brothers, Epy is the one who most resembled him. “You can be upset. It’s all right to be upset.”

“Nothing gets past you,” Epy repeats with a laugh. He touches Mon on the knee before getting up to turn the television off. Mon doesn’t take his eyes off his Epy’s back.

*

Movie night is almost as terrible as Game night, but at least Mon can take comfort in the fact that none of Epy’s flannel-clad bespectacled friends will be coming over to make a mess of the living room. Movie night is always on a Friday so Mon doesn’t have to worry about getting up for work the next day. This time Epy’s put him in charge of the food, so he buys a bucket of KFC chicken on his MRT commute back home, making sure to stop at a 7-11 for a bag of that cheddar popcorn that smell a lot like feet but that Epy seems to like so much. When he gets home, toeing off his shoes at the door, he can already hear Epy in the living room, watching something in French and making snappy commentary. He loves talking at the TV, whether it’s to comment on the news or a new Globe commercial. He always has plenty to say about everything.

“Hey,” Mon calls out, “I’m home.”

As soon as Mon drops his messenger bag on the kitchen counter, he hears a shuffle in the living room followed by whatever is on TV being put on mute. Epy slinks into the kitchen in track bottoms and an oversized _Back to the Future_ shirt. He’s wearing his art socks, these novelty socks that depict famous world paintings and cost half of what Mon probably makes a week. Tonight it’s the _Mona Lisa,_ her pale grey hands tucked over Epy’s ankles _._

Mon lifts the bucket to eye-level and Epy grins and gives him a thumbs up.

“Did you cook the rice?” Mon asks, as Epy begins to pull out plates and silverware from drawers and cupboards.

“Yeah, but I wasn’t sure how much water to put into the ricecooker so it came out all… mushy.”

Mon stares at him for a second before laughing.

“What?” Epy says, setting down the plates. “ _What?”_

“Nothing,” Mon assures him. “I just… Don’t worry about it, I like mushy rice.”

“Oh,” Epy says. “Cool. Me too.”

Mon hands him a can of beer from the fridge and they toast briefly before Epy pops the lid open and takes a short pull. Epy eyes the contents of Mon’s paper bag on the counter: a can of shaving gel, some toiletries, and the bag of cheddar popcorn spilling out like a snake’s tongue.

“Hey,” he says brightly, slapping Mon on the arm. “You remembered!”

“Yeah, all right, of course.” Mon rubs his arm where Epy has hit him the hardest, and later when they’re browsing through Epy’s new DVD purchases from his latest trip to Astroplus, he barely feels the sting anymore.

*

They watch _Dead Poets Society_ , which isn’t all that bad, considering Mon, at least, recognizes Robin Williams and there’s hardly any need for subtitles because all the dialogue is in English. It’s a deviation from Epy’s usual fare: obscure grainy films that predate the 16:4 aspect ratio.

Mon has an aversion to German films in general because the men sound angry all the time, while French New Wave films make him wonder what the hell he just wasted two hours of his life on. Before Epy, he didn’t even know who _Jean-Luc Godard_ was or who directed the Star Wars films. Before Epy, he’s never stepped foot into a Starbucks of his own volition. It’s incongruous to think there ever was a Before Epy; this is what his life is like now.

They eat their chicken with their hands, in front of the TV, scooping rice with their fingers and licking the bones clean, washing the grease off with cans of San Mig Dry. Epy doesn’t do this around his friends – Mon has seen the receipts he leaves lying around the kitchen counter and they’re all from restaurants with hip or hard to pronounce names – so it’s nice to see him without artifice, stripped clean of pretentions. At home, he’s just Epy, who laughs at all the inappropriate intervals and who burps after every meal. Epy with the myriad of stripes in his wardrobe, with the aversion to FPJ movies, with a laugh in the morning soft like bar room smoke.

Epy excuses himself to wash his hands and when he comes back he’s got a box of Kleenex hugged to his chest. Halfway into the film, Mon hears him start to sniff a little so he turns the volume down and pats Epy on the shoulder to get him to look at him. “Okay ka lang?”

“This is my favourite bit,” Epy tells him, blowing his nose into a wad of tissues. “When he tells his students to make their lives extraordinary. I feel like I haven’t done much in life. Do you ever get the feeling that you’re never going to? That you’ve hit your peak and everything you will be experiencing from this point on will just be a rehash of everything that’s already happened to you?”

Mon squeezes his shoulder and slings an arm around him. He doesn’t know what to say to that so he leaves the conversation hanging awkwardly. He isn’t like the characters in Epy’s movies who know the right thing to say at any given situation, the men that charm women in dark bars and drink cigars with their brandy. He’s just some guy from the province trying his luck out in Manila; he still stumbles on some complicated English words; he still has that unforgivable probinsyano lilt. Some things never change no matter the time and place.

Epy sighs and blows his nose again and smiles wryly at him.  “You just missed ten minutes of the movie,” he says. “Get the remote, we’re gonna have to watch the bits you missed again.”

*

Mon’s seen Epy drunk before, a fair number of times. They’ve been roommates for less than a year but Epy has a penchant for parties that tend to spill over till morning. Sometimes they’re at friends’ houses or clubs in the more expensive part of the city. Usually Mon knows Epy is due for a night out based on the tightness of his jeans. And his level of enthusiasm. And he always wears those chunky boots and that awful fedora that swallows up his hair. Sometimes there’s eyeliner, depending on the _scene_. Most of the time it’s just cologne.

Epy’s friends are just like him: art…people that live well beyond their means but are still financially dependent on their parents. Mon doesn’t mean this in a mean way, but factually. He knows Epy gets cheques in the mail when he can’t pay for his phone bill.

The thing is though, Mon can’t help but feel bitter when Epy’s parties encroach on Movie Night. It’s the only thing he looks forward to at the end of a long work week so seeing Epy getting ready for a night out grates on his nerves. He feels oddly frustrated; he doesn’t know where that’s coming from. Mon watches from the kitchen, arms crossed, as Epy searches for his missing boot, pulling out the left pair from underneath the couch and then giving a triumphant cry. “A-ha!”

Mon shakes his head and drinks his beer. “Have fun at the party,” he says, not the least bit sarcastic. Epy tips his hat at him and curtsies before dashing out the door  -- always charmingly late to these kinds of things.

*

Mon promises himself not to obsess over it; he really isn’t the type. He puts in a valiant effort at least, but by 2 AM his eyes are starting to close, he’s had at least four shitty beers, and he’s marathoned half of Season One of _Gilmore Girls,_ which he’d found purely by chance wedged between  the couch cushions. Around the same time, Epy stumbles into the front door, shutting the door behind him with a clatter and a pointed hiss of pain, his footsteps making clumsy thumps towards the living room where the Mon has left the TV on. Mon doesn’t move from his position, watching as Epy kicks his boots off in a haphazard fashion before throwing himself onto the sitting chair opposite. He smells like cigarettes even though he’s told Mon that he’s quit as far back as college. It’s just like his veganism, probably – he has a difficult time following through with his promises.

The sigh that Epy gives is stuttery, and it’s the only indication that anything is wrong. Mon sits up gingerly, and Epy jumps up, startled – “Putang ina – you scared me!” but otherwise he stays put, digging the heel of one hand into his eye.

“Are you crying?” Mon asks.

“No,” Epy sniffs. “Just have something in my eye.”

Mon blinks at him disbelievingly, taking in his rumpled state: his loose sprawl, his flushed face, his eyes wetter in the dark. He knows how Epy gets when he’s drunk. He’s either a happy drunk or a sad drunk; there is no in between. Something in the party probably upset him; Mon has met a few of Epy’s friends and he can’t say anything redeemable about any of them. He doesn’t know why Epy insists on hanging out with them; they seem like such vapid, shallow people. “Hey,” Mon says, cupping Epy’s ankle where he’s propped it up on the coffee table. “Don’t cry.”

“I’m not!” Epy hisses indignantly. “Will you stop – I’m just, I’m just really tired.”

“Okay,” Mon says. “Want me to help you to your room?”

Epy gives him a scathing look, shaking off his grasp and poking him with a sweaty toe. “I’m not a child, Mon. I can show myself to my room.”

“I know,” Mon laughs. “I just…” He shrugs. _Just what?_ He doesn’t even know how to end that line of thought. Finally, he sighs himself and climbs to his feet, turning the TV off and plunging the room to blue-black darkness. The light from the buildings outside slices through the blinds, cutting lines across the floor and throwing shadows across Epy’s face.

“Maybe I need a little help,” Epy amends after a second. “I mean, I feel a bit… dizzy.” He sounds embarrassed, contrite. Mon can never say no to him; he knows just as much.

“That’s because you’re drunk off your ass,” Mon admonishes him. “You really need to learn how to pace yourself.”

“Pace,” Epy repeats. “That’s such a fun word. _Pace.”_ He laughs at his own joke.

Mon tugs him up by the wrist and Epy immediately follows, allowing Mon to herd him back to his room with one hand at his elbow, his arm looped around his waist. Mon flicks the light on and Epy groans, swatting him on the stomach with near violent haste. “Shit, that’s too bright, turn it off, turn it off!” He stumbles around in the dark for a good two minutes before eventually finding his bed, dropping face-first onto it and shrugging out of his jacket.

Mon turns the bedside lamp on, flooding the room with soft incandescent light. Epy grunts but doesn’t complain, squirming out of his jeans and leaving them to pool at the foot of the bed. Mon very pointedly does not laugh at his Godzilla-print boxer shorts. Instead, he tosses a pillow at Epy’s face and Epy snorts and kicks his leg out in Mon’s general direction in retaliation. Bout of silliness subsiding, Epy scrubs a hand over his face, hugging the pillow to his face and chest. When he lifts his eyes to look at Mon, there’s a wry twist to the corners of his lips, a smile that’s almost visible. His features look soft in this kind of light, slack because of the lateness of the hour. “Do you ever think that everything we do is, in a way, to be loved more?”

Mon sits at the foot of the bed. It’s an innocuous question, but he decides to indulge Epy anyway. He gets into these moods sometimes, and it’ll be harder, later, to pull him out once he starts to brood. “I don’t know,” he says vaguely. “I guess? I mean, we do things for people we love, right?”

Epy shrugs with one shoulder. “Yeah,” he says. “But I mean, have you ever done certain things, anything, for people to like you more?”

The question knocks Mon off center. He’s done something like that back when he’d been young and impressionable, and cared a lot about what people think, but at the same time, he’s a take it or leave it kind of guy and he’s never been someone who put on airs. He’s happy enough with the way he is, comfortable in his own skin. He doesn’t ... _pretend_. He doesn’t see any point in it. “No, I guess not,” he says, not sure where the conversation is headed.

This time, the smile on Epy’s face seems sincere. “Right,” he says. “Always so honest aren’t you? That’s what I like about you, Mon. You’re the nicest most honest guy in the world.”

*

The problem with being a nice guy is that Mon can almost never refuse Epy. The premiere of the next Star Wars film has Epy caught in a mania, rewatching all the movies on the days leading up to the premiere. He digs out his old lightsaber from a box in the closet, and agonizes over what to wear during the midnight screening. He claims he wants something inspired by the movie, short of showing up in cosplay. In the end, he shows up looking like a hipster Han Solo, in a black vest and cream-coloured v-neck shirt from _Uniqlo_. Mon wears jeans and a t-shirt that he’d grabbed at random from his drawer. He doesn’t have an aesthetic – Epy says just as much.

Epy drives them to the screening and the line to the theater is about five leagues deep, probably, comprised of screaming kids and die-hard fans, some of whom had gone in full costume. There are a few Leias and several variations of Obi-Wan and Sith Lords, and Epy sends Mon to the popcorn line to queue for snacks. When he comes back, Epy is immersed in a heated debate with one of the Sith Lords who storms off in a huff as soon as Mon is within earshot.

“What was that all about?” he asks. Epy just shrugs and mutters, “Posers,” under his breath.

*

It’s two in the morning when the movie finishes. Bloated with popcorn and Pepsi, but still weirdly hungry, they trudge back to the car park, Epy going on nonstop about the things he likes about the movie. Most of the references went way over Mon’s head – he’s seen the entire franchise just last week because Epy had forced him to, elbowing him in the stomach each time he would fall asleep –  but he’ll agree it’s a decent enough film.

“Decent?” Epy cries out, slapping his hands over the steering wheel. It’s a small blessing the roads are empty at this hour, otherwise they’d have already careened into traffic. “I agree it’s not fucking Werner Herzog, _Ramon Confiado_ , but it’s a good piece of cinema!”

“All right already,” Mon says, raising his arms in surrender. “What do you want me to say?”

Epy gives him a baleful look. “Nothing,” he says. “Nothing.” He’s clearly upset, shaking his head and turning on the radio which is something he never really does. Mon stares at him, trying to figure him out, but decides to give up on the cause when Epy keeps his eyes on the road and refuses to look at him even after Mon touches his shoulder. A terrible pop song starts to play, breaking the tense silence in static hisses. Movies are a weird thing to be upset about, but Mon has known Epy all of ten months, and during that short time he’s noticed Epy’s tendency to get hung up on the little things. When they get home, Epy’s still giving him the cold shoulder and Mon is bothered enough by it that he grabs Epy by the elbow as he’s dropping his car keys into the bowl on the counter. It puts Mon at a slight disadvantage because now Epy’s frowning at him openly, waiting for him to explain the hand at his elbow, his eyebrow raised.

Mon thinks about all those movies that Epy makes him watch, the clean crisp dialogue, the kinds of confrontation that take place in softly-lit rooms. The beautiful women, in the background, just slightly out of focus. But life isn’t a movie; and he’ll have to rely on his own words to salvage the situation. “I’m a charlatan, you said so yourself before, so you know what kind of movies I like.”

“Yeah,” Epy snorts. “Die Hard and Transformers.” He says that last one with a hint of _bite._

Mon shrugs; he isn’t going to apologize for his tastes, but he knows there are times you have to concede. “It was a great movie, all things considered,” he tells Epy. “And you looked … _nice_ tonight.” For some reason, he flushes when he says this even though he’s just stating a fact.

“Nice?” Epy repeats, indignant. “I was freaking Han Solo!”

Mon laughs. “The best one in the room, in fact.” And it isn’t even a lie. Probably that’s his bias speaking, but Epy had looked…nice. He wishes there were a better word.

Epy rolls his eyes, poking him in the ribs with a finger. “Don’t flatter me.”

Mon shrugs, letting go of his arm. “I just didn’t want to upset you.”

“If anything upset me it was you sleeping through most of the movie.”

“It’s a Friday night, and work was really stressful yesterday! In my defense, I was really exhausted.”

“Well, then, you shouldn’t have gone with me to the premiere. I could’ve asked someone else. You should’ve told me.”

“And miss the opportunity to see you as Han Solo?” Mon asks skeptically.

“Fuck you,” Epy says, before he bursts out laughing. Mon likes the sound of that laugh, especially at 3 in the morning when he’s exhausted to the bone and listing on his feet. It feels like a coming home.

“Sorry na, kung na-offend ka,” Mon says, at last.

Epy waves a hand at him, the entire thing forgotten. “These movies just mean a lot to me,” he says.

Mon claps him on the shoulder before rubbing the same spot over with his thumb. “I know,” he sighs. “But you really looked good tonight, no lie. You looked really cool. I think you’ve outdone yourself this time.”

Epy ducks his head in embarrassment before lifting his eyes with a grin. “ _Gago_ ,” he says, but with an undercurrent of affection. These days it’s worrying that Mon can tell whether Epy means things or not.

*

Mon’s laptop dies an anticlimactic death while he’s in the middle of typing up a report in the living room. After issuing a series of worrying beeps, the thing finally dies before the screen shutters and eventually goes blank. He gives it a fair chance to redeem itself – jamming the power button repeatedly until he gives it up for a lost cause.

He takes the issue calmly, surveying the mess he’s made of the living room with a resigned sigh, but inside he has the mind to fling the damn thing across the room and stomp on its contents. It’s 1 in the morning and he barely has any sleep and the report has to be at his boss’ desk before 9 am. He isn’t the type to panic, but now would be a good time to start. There’s so much more to do. He drags himself to his feet.

Epy has no bedtime to speak of so Mon tries his luck and knocks at the door. He pushes it open after a minute of no response and thankfully Epy isn’t lounging around in his underwear, half-naked, or masturbating or anything. He finds Epy lying on his side, asleep, earphones twined around his middle and plugged into a MacBook next to him on the bed. There’s a movie playing on screen – a girl in a red beanie leaning out of a balcony, on the phone with someone. Mon knocks again out of politeness but there’s still no response so he pads over to the bed and carefully sits at Epy’s feet. He tugs the earphones out of Epy’s ears and Epy makes a noise of complaint, rubbing sleep from his eyes and yawning.

He blinks down at Mon, smiling a dopey smile when recognition dawns. There’s something to be said about watching Epy wake up incrementally, the way his entire face unfurls and somehow softens. “Hey, you,” he says, voice raspy from sleep, propping an arm up. “What are you doing here? Kala ko may report ka pang tatapusin?”

Mon shrugs one shoulder. “I kind of need to borrow your MacBook. My laptop died. Pasensya na.”

Epy sits up, concerned. “Ha? Akala ko company-issued yung laptop?”

Mon laughs bitterly.

Epy shakes his head. “Sige, gamitin mo lang, marunong ka bang gumamit ng Macbook?”

Now it’s Mon’s turn to shake his head.

Epy gives him a crash course, and forty five minutes later, Mon’s pulling up what he’s saved of his report on GoogleDocs, navigating the complexities of a MacBook while jogging his leg up and down. They sit in relative silence in the kitchen where the lighting is better and Mon isn’t too comfortable that he’ll run the risk of falling asleep. Epy is up now so he starts making coffee for the both of them, puttering around with the coffee pot and taking out their respective mugs from the drawers – Epy’s is the one with an _Arctic Monkeys_ logo, Mon’s is black and nondescript and generic which he won at work during a Power Hour raffle.

Epy sets Mon his coffee on the table and Mon mutters his thanks, rubbing the headache he can feel forming behind his eyes.

Epy keeps him company, claiming it’s too late to sleep anyway, playing Candy Crush on his iPad and making annoyed noises every time he loses a game. Eventually, he gets up and makes breakfast, and it’s only when Epy sets a plate of charred bacon and runny eggs in front of Mon that he realizes Epy’s attempted to cook at all – a first because Epy is a self-confessed bum. The number of times he’s turned the stove on can be counted in one hand. He prefers re-heating pre-cooked meals on the microwave or waiting for Mon to cave into pressure and cook.

“Eat,” Epy tells him. “You keep grabbing at your hair and it’s been driving me crazy.”

Mon sighs, slouching in his seat. He looks out the window and wonders what time it is. Morning again, maybe, judging from the light outside softened by dew and streetlight. He turns to the plate in front of him, then up at Epy’s hopeful face.

“Don’t knock it until you try it, hey,” Epy jokes, waggling his eyebrows. “If it sucks, I can always heat sausage in a can, and we still have leftover ulam from last night.”

“This will do,” Mon assures him, huffing out a laugh. He pats Epy on the hand, right where his complicated tattoo is, and Epy jumps and pulls out his hand like he’s been burnt. Mon is too tired to read into it so he starts digging into his food instead – the eggs too salty, the bacon fried to a charcoal crisp – but he keeps a straight face throughout all of it.

Epy waits expectantly for the verdict, elbows on the table, with fists tucked under his chin. “Well?” he says. He raises his eyebrows. His hair is flat where he’s slept on it, curling out in a cowlick over his forehead like a paintbrush stroke.

Mon washes it all down with coffee and forces a burp, rubbing at his stomach. “Marunong ka naman palang magluto eh,” he says.

The embarrassed grin that lights up Epy’s face is worth it.

*

Because Mon works unreasonable hours, eventually, he comes down with the flu. He phones in sick and spends the rest of the morning sleeping in fits, waking up to piss or wash his face with cold water from the tap. He sweats through his clothes but can’t be bothered turning the airconditioning on – he’s shivering all over even though he’s got two pairs of socks on and a thermal jacket. He feels like his body has been dipped in honey and dragged through sand and mud.

Epy finds him in that sorry state when he’s looking for spare batteries for the remote, walking without any preamble into Mon’s room in a trooper hat lined with fur, just one item from his vast and varied collection of hats. Mon only becomes acutely aware of Epy’s presence when Epy sits on the edge of the bed and holds out a hand over his forehead. “Shit,” he hisses. “Ang init mo. Did you check your temperature?””

Mon gives him a dull look with one eye closed. Epy sighs like a fussing mother and helps Mon sit up, pushing his jacket off his shoulders while Mon gives up struggling altogether. Epy has such cool hands, their movement quick but efficient. Mon remembers walking in on Epy painting a few times, his shirt streaked with dye, his spine bent in a sinuous curve as he brooded over his easel. There used to be days where he’d walk around smelling like turpentine, muttering to himself and eating nothing but coffee and Nice biscuits.

Now those same hands are on him, lifting Mon’s shirt over his head. Epy’s eyes flick from Mon’s chest up to his face. He looks flushed himself but Mon can’t really tell with his vision tunneling every so often. “You’ll need to change. You smell like sweat.” Epy leans over to grab a random shirt from the top drawer already hanging open, tossing it at Mon’s face before crossing his arms. Mon dutifully pulls it over his head before slipping back into his jacket. Epy helps pull the sheets up over him before standing over the bed with his hands on his hips.

“Well,” Epy says with a wry shake of the head. “You really overdid it, this time, didn’t you?”

It’s the last thing Mon sees before he falls asleep. When he comes to some vague hour later, Epy’s sitting in bed, a plastic bag in his lap as he holds a glass of water aloft. “Get up,” he says, “Oy, gising.” He doesn’t mean to be so obtuse; Mon knows it’s just how Epy talks sometimes.

Mon unspools himself with some difficulty, propping himself against the headboard. He feels a little bit better; still tired, but less likely to throw up the meager contents of his stomach. When he blinks his eyes open, he feels crust in the corners. He also smells musty, like sweat, but then again the entire room does as well. There’s a funny acrid taste in the back of his throat, like he’d forgotten to brush his teeth after a night of heavy drinking.  

“I bought you meds,” Epy announces as he pats him on the knee.

“I thought you didn’t have money for gas,” Mon says, scrubbing at his eyes.

“I commuted,” Epy says, shrugging. Like it’s something he does regularly. Mon tries to picture him dodging traffic in his pajamas, still wearing his trooper hat and bedroom slippers, earning himself a fair amount of looks. “I went to the nearest Mercury Drug.”

“In that getup?” Mon asks him, trying not to smile. He points to Epy’s hat, giving the left ear flap a gentle tug.  

Epy sniffs, adjusting the hat on his head, slapping Mon’s errant hand away when Mon tries to reach for it again. “It’s like a 15 minute commute. Not that big of a deal.” He rifles through the contents of his plastic bag – some Paracetamol, a tube of Vicks Vaporub, Antibiotics and Strepsils, a bit of everything, it looks like; Epy obviously doesn’t know what his affliction is. Mon must have said that out loud because Epy swats him on the shoulder. “Shut up or I won’t let you have any of this soup.” He bends down to procure another plastic bag from his feet. Mon recognizes the smell anywhere – chicken wonton noodle soup from Chowking.

Mon makes a zipping gesture over his lips. “My lips are sealed,” he says. Clearly, Epy doesn’t look convinced but he ends up handing Mon his food after he’s obediently drunk most of the water and swallowed his pill.

Epy has a snack of his own – siopao asado he peels off in chunks and dips into the asado filling. Mon watches him eat because he can’t quiet help himself, the repetitive movement of his hands steady it becomes soothing. When he’s finishes eating, slurping the contents of the soup, he sets the bowl aside on the nightstand and wipes his mouth on his sleeve. He downs another glass of water, staggering out of bed to piss in the bathroom. When he returns, the bed sheets are completely fresh and new, and the glass of water has been refilled. He looks at Epy who simply shrugs in response, refusing to look at him as he rubs his elbows.

Mon leans over to tap Epy on the nose in thanks, squeezing his nostrils between his index and middle finger, laughing when Epy lets out an indignant noise and nearly falls off his perch on the bed in surprise.

“Lumabas ka talaga na ganyan ang suot mo?” Mon says, indicating the hat, the pajamas, the threadbare Beatles shirt with the hole in the sleeve. Epy nods, raising his eyebrows, daring him to continue. His hat is lopsided, the earflaps swallowing his face, his cheeks. He looks _ridiculous_ but it’s  a quality Mon has come to like about him.

“Wala lang,” Mon says, laughing. “Cute mo lang.”

Mon tucks himself in, crawling over Epy to get to his side of the bed, before giving an earflap another tug, just because. He misses Epy’s blush because he shuts his eyes too soon; he misses Epy’s snort, and the hand he uses to stroke the hair back from Mon’s head because he falls asleep too quickly like stone sinking into water.

*

It’s easy to write Epy off as a spoiled rich kid. Everywhere in the condo is testament to his upbringing: he has a collection of movies that make the entire shelf heave; his clothes are not department-store brought but purchased from actual shops, and he’s never set foot in Divisoria before or eaten street food because he’s wary about, of all things, germs. Also, there’s his accent. Mon can tell it’s not an affectation that his words sound rhythmic. His vowels are smooth like honey, his enunciation flawless and foreign. The first week Mon moves into the spare room, Mon thinks they may have a problem getting along what with Epy’s complete disregard for chores and the two of them having absolutely nothing in common.

But then Epy himself is full of surprises; he keeps doing things that disprove Mon’s initial opinion of him: that he’s only interested in ‘art’, that he looks down on people like Mon who came from humble beginnings, that he’s really just a nasty party boy with pretentious bastards for friends and a secret drug problem.

Before Christmas, Epy gets a phonecall. It’s the middle of Movie Night so he ducks out of the living room to take it and it’s Mon’s only indication that it’s probably from someone important. Usually, Epy talks on the phone all the time within his vicinity, not caring an iota that Mon overhears. When Epy comes back, his posture changes – stiff to the point of tension. He looks pale.

“What’s up?” Mon asks, scraping the last dregs of popcorn from the bowl.

Epy smiles wanly, flopping down next to Mon, limbs askew. His left sock has a hole in the toe. “It’s my mother,” he says. “She wants me to come over for Christmas Eve.” He clenches his eyes shut and thumps his head back against the couch. “Shit, shit, shit.”

Mon knows enough of Epy’s family drama to recognize this doesn’t bode well. “Are you going?”

Epy laughs humourlessly and squints one eye at him, shaking his head. “Do I have a choice? If I refuse to go, that’s another thing I’ll have hanging over my head. They never forget when I miss a Christmas dinner.”

“Yeah, well,” Mon says, patting him on the shoulder companionably. He wishes he knew what to say. But he’s always been man of action, not of words, so he gives Epy’s shoulder a squeeze instead. “Good luck with that.”

“ _Luck_?” Epy laughs again, but he doesn’t shake Mon’s hand off. “I’ll need a miracle.”

*

Mon is sorting out his laundry when there’s a knock at the door. He looks up, and it’s Epy in a red Christmas jumper with Santa’s huge face printed in front. He’s also wearing felt reindeer antlers on his head and they bob with every step. The outfit is cheery enough but Epy looks deathly nervous. This can only mean one of two things: either he’s broken something of Mon’s and has come to confess or he’s there to ask a favour.

Mon raises his eyebrows in response and Epy takes that as his cue to shuffle into the room, grabbing the beanbag in the corner and depositing himself on it till it sinks with his weight. Epy watches him fold laundry, hands folded across his chest and twiddling his thumbs. The jumper rides up his belly, flat and smooth with a visible trail of hair leading from below his bellybutton south. It’s clear he wants to say something but Mon lets the silence prevail for another minute more before asking Epy what’s on his mind.  

“I wanted to ask if you were doing anything Christmas Eve. Do you have work that night?”

“No, I took a few days off. Why?”

Epy chews on the inside of his cheek. He holds up a finger. “Before you say anything, I’ll owe big time for this.” He clambers down and starts to kneel, folding his hands together in supplication and bowing his head. “Please, please, I need you to go with me to my mother’s house for Christmas. Please! I’ll do chores for a week, I’ll cook dinner! I really need this!”

Mon scratches his chin, pretending to think. He’s missed the Cebu Pac seat sale by mere minutes so he’s forgone booking a flight back home altogether because the prices are horrendous this time of year. This is his second Christmas in Manila; his mother will nag him mercilessly about never making time, but Mon will make it up to her one way or another; it isn’t like he doesn’t occasionally miss home. “But you don’t know how to cook,” he points out to Epy who frowns as he lifts his head. “But I can learn?”

“You’ve also never vacuumed before,” Mon adds.

“Um, I can…also learn?” Epy’s voice starts to falter. When Mon bursts out laughing, Epy blinks in confusion so Mon decides to stop being a bastard and help him off his feet. But he’s still allowed to laugh while doing it.

“Get up, you don’t have to kneel, Ep. Come on. I’ll go with you. I don’t have anything planned anyway.”

“Really?” Epy asks. He sounds so disbelieving Mon has to pat him on the back to reassure him.

“Yeah, really. You wanna pinky swear on that?”

Epy rolls his eyes. He’s taught Mon the pinky swear, once, straight-faced, after they’ve decided to split household chores between them – an unbreakable pact between men, he’d said, in the absence of legally binding documents. Mon will never let him live it down.

“I’m fine,” he sniffs. He gives Mon one last disbelieving look. “Are you sure?”

Mon doesn’t even hesitate, picking up a shirt from the pile of laundry and smoothing out the creases. “Of course I’m sure,” he says and smiles.

Epy doesn’t say anything for a minute before he starts in on the folding too.

*

The night of the dinner, Epy goes through five outfit changes and several moods ranging from depressed to angry to jittery with nerves. He chooses a checkered long-sleeve button up, deviating from the usual complication of ensembles he prefers: no vests, or eyeliner, or longcoats with shiny brass cufflinks. No boots, either – tonight he’s wearing nondescript blue sneakers. He’s styled his hair too, tamed down his curls, applied a bit of product. Now his hair is all floppy and listless, matting the sides of his face. He looks several years younger, like a kid.

“Should I wear a bowtie?” Mon teases him. Epy rolls his eyes. He helps Mon pick out as shirt – a black button up Mon pairs with one of four pairs of jeans he wears on a steady rotation. They’re ready by 4PM even though dinner isn’t until 8. They sit in the living room for about half an hour, watching the news, flipping through channels, not really talking.

Last week Mon had helped Epy put up the Christmas tree, lugging the old thing out from storage where it’s sat unused for five years when Epy had first moved in. Now it sits in the corner, decked in shiny paper angels Epy had made himself from bits of leftover newspaper that he’d painted over in flashy colours. The tree is wreathed in blinking yellow lights but it’s the lit up Yoda on top, in place of a star, and listing slightly to the left, that Mon thinks makes their tree stand out. It still makes him laugh. Epy says he’s never had reason to take out the tree until now, because for the last few years he spent Christmas at his friends’ houses; there really wasn’t any point to decorate the living room when there wouldn’t be anyone to appreciate it.

Mon thinks about the present in his drawer, the one he had wrapped twice after the first attempt looked uneven. He still hasn’t set it out under the tree and he wonders, vaguely, if Epy remembered to get something for him too.

*

At 5PM, Epy shoots up from the couch, grabbing his keys from the bowl and beckoning for Mon to follow.   His parents live in an affluent neighbourhood, a three story house in a long tree-lined street of impressive houses. Epy parks the car a block away, jumping out of the driver seat and clenching and unclenching his hands at his sides. He looks like he’s preparing for a marathon, breathing in deep and breathing out and running his hands all over his face. He’s worked himself up into a sweat.

“Relax,” Mon says, squeezing him by the shoulders. He rubs until the tension eases out from under his fingers and Epy sags forward and leans his head on Mon’s chest – so out of character and unexpected that it takes Mon a full minute before he hugs Epy back. His hair smells like product – not fruity like the shampoo he uses, but different, unfamiliar. Mon strokes his spine and feels Epy shudder against him, his breath warm on Mon’s neck making the hair on his arms stand on end. “Relax,” Mon repeats, but even for him it’s easier said than done when Epy is so close and touching him. “You’ll be fine, just relax.”

“These people are vicious,” Epy tells him, a rise in his voice. “They ask me what I’m doing with my life and I just clam up and feel like vomiting.”

“Have you ever vomited at dinner before?”

“Once,” Epy admits. “Then another time I made sure I was speaking to my least favourite uncle. He didn’t like puke on his expensive loafers, I’ll tell you that.”

Epy leans back from Mon’s embrace and they both share a shaky smile. “Whatever happens in there, you’ll be fine. We can just make off with the expensive silverware and then spend Christmas at home if worse comes to worst.”

Epy gets this funny look on face for a second before he shakes it off and nods. “Yeah,” he says. “Let’s eat pizza and watch Lord of the Rings or something.”

“That’s the spirit,” Mon says with a laugh. He taps Epy’s cheek for good measure, then tips his chin up for good luck. There are things he wants to say right now but don’t have the courage to; things he wishes he knew how to articulate if only he knew where to find the words.

“You’ll be fine,” he assures Epy. “You’ll be fine.”

*

Epy isn’t lying when he said his family is brutal. He comes from a big family, which explains the size of the house. The furniture is imported, with Mediterranean touches here and there, and everything matches: from the curtains to the carpeting, to the long couches flanking each side of the room decked with an assortment of hand-woven pillows.

Their tree is ten feet tall, filled with various Christmas ornaments it’s any wonder the tree hasn’t toppled over. There are a handful of people already there – kids running around and house help carrying food in shining silver trays. Mon can’t help but feel overwhelmed. He looks at Epy who hugs uncles and aunts and cousins, grinning with just the right amount of cheer, laughing at all the right cues.

It’s all calculated; he seems like a different person altogether, with his flat hair and his shirt buttoned up to the throat. Mon knows how uncomfortable Epy is on account of the tremor of his hands. He gets that way sometimes, before job interviews. He’s only applied twice this year and failed both interviews, sinking further into self-pity because he’s the type to take rejection to heart.

Epy makes the requisite introductions, introducing Mon as his friend or his roommate. At dinner, Epy’s mother asks Mon what he does for a living, and he pauses for a minute before explaining himself. It’s just a data entry desk job that pays well enough, nothing to write home about, so he doesn’t elaborate.

Mrs Quizon nods before cutting into her tofu – the whole family is going Vegan, she’d said, apologizing for most of the dishes prepared with a Vegan touch. Of course they’re going Vegan. A lot of things are starting to make sense.

“What about you, Ep? Any luck with work?” Epy’s stepfather asks. Epy’s dad died ten years ago, when he was still in his last year of college. Even without Epy stating the obvious, Mon recognizes the palpable tension between them, thick as gauze. All throughout the evening, Epy had avoided the man like a plague, ducking into rooms on the pretense of refilling his drink or needing to use the bathroom. Mon’s watched all of it from the sidelines, a spectator of the mounting madness. He wishes, not for the first time, that he could do something, but it’s not place to intervene.

Epy shrugs, not answering the question though there’s a visible tightening in his jaw. He holds his fork with a white-knuckled grip as he plays around with his food.

“Ilang taon ka nang walang trabaho, iho? Hanggang kelan ka nalang aasa sa mama mo?” His stepfather, exasperated, lowers his cutlery with a clatter. A hushed silence falls over the table; no one makes eye contact. Even Mon feels like he’s holding his breath.

“I’m trying my best,” Epy says through gritted teeth. “I’m just not having any luck.” His voice sounds small, shaky with emotion, and something about it makes something protective in Mon flare up.

“Pero limang taon? Ano ba yang ‘trying my best’. You’re clearly not doing anything with your life. How old are you, twenty eight?” He points his bread knife at Epy. “Two years and you’ll be thirty years old, and then what will you have to prove?”

“He doesn’t have to prove anything!”

The silence seems to be pressing all around them. Mon blinks, and realizes he’s said the words aloud. It almost makes him laugh, the sheer relief of having said them, the utter craziness of tonight.

It’s like he’s stuck in a family drama, one of those afternoon soaps his mother likes to watch while she’s working hard at the sewing machine, pedaling and pedaling until Mon has come to associate the endless whir with the schedule of noontime soaps. He stands, all of a sudden, the chair making a loud scraping noise on the marble. He looks at each of their faces, and nods at Epy’s mother, at his stepfather, feeling strangely emboldened even though he can hear his pulse in his ears. “We have to go but I wish you all have a great evening. Thank you for the food. And Merry Christmas.”

He waits for Epy to follow, giving him an expectant look. There’s a moment of hesitation, where Mon fears for a second he’s fucked up royally, but then Epy dabs his chin with a table napkin before tossing it at the table and waving goodbye at his stepfather. The two of them stumble out the double doors and into the enveloping chill of the evening, both giddy from the aftermath.

The streetlights are on outside, illuminating the long walk to the car, as if it’s highlighting how fraught the situation seems, how full of potential it is, or simply just innocuous. Mon can hear, distantly, the familiar chime of Christmas songs floating from one of the houses down the street. A car putters past them. The leaves in the trees overhead rustle as a cool breeze blows through them.

Epy climbs into the driver seat of the car, turning the ignition on and letting the engine hum back to life. He doesn’t speak. Neither does Mon. Both of their hands are shaking and Mon waits a beat before clipping on his seatbelt.

Then Epy smacks him on the shoulder.

“I can’t believe you did that,” Epy breathes. “I can’t believe you did that! You fucking bastard!” He smacks him again, this time with an open-palm, hard enough to leave a smarting bruise.

“Ow, ow! Stop hitting me! _Stop!_ ” Mon spreads his hands out in a defensive gesture, blocking Epy’s blows.  Epy needs to address all this aggression, especially when it’s directed towards Mon. He’s small enough to seem harmless but the guy can pack a mean punch _. Smack! Smack! Smack!_ Mon manages to grab Epy by the wrists, making Epy flail for a fair bit before relaxing. He’s breathing hard, his face flushed, his eyes bright with wetness.

When he looks less likely to extol great and potentially damaging violence, Mon finally lets his wrists go and sags against his side of the car.

“You don’t have anything to prove,” Mon says, in a soft voice. It sounds intimate when he says it, now, that they’re alone. “You shouldn’t listen to them. They don’t know anything.”

“Don’t presume to know me,” Epy says, but without any real heat. He sounds tired. Mon glances at the clock on the dashboard, reading 11:11PM. Almost Christmas morning then.

“I really don’t,” Mon says. “But you’re my friend and I hate seeing you hurt even by family. Sometimes they mean well, but other times they can be sons of bitches. In your case, _well_.” He reaches out to touch the back of Epy’s hand, as finicky as fish, twitching under his grasp before allowing him to close his fingers around Epy’s knuckles to squeeze.

“Does that happen every year?”

“I guess,” Epy says. He shivers when Mon starts to trace the veins in his hand with his thumb.

“Then why go there every Christmas?”

“You won’t understand.”

Mon nods. “I guess not.” He lets Epy’s hand go.

“Come on, let’s grab pizza and go home,” Epy says before letting out a big sniff. He backs the car out of the street, wiping snot all over the sleeve of his shirt.

“Are we good?” Mon asks when the silence has reached its peak.

“Yes,” Epy says, like there never has been any doubt. He flashes Mon a faint smile. “We’re good.”

*

Mon has the rest of the holidays off. He comes back to work on the fourth of January, but until then he’s free to laze about and work on personal projects. He does none of those projects and ends up sleeping in, mostly out of exhaustion, but a few days before New Year, he gets a call from one of his cousins in Pampanga, inviting him to a birthday party.

Epy hasn’t been doing anything himself, in a mood since after Christmas dinner so Mon decides to invite him too. It’s the least he can do for Epy who’s been listless for the last few days, locked up in his room painting, listening to a band called _Mumford & Sons _. A man can only take so much banjo. He hardly ever leaves his room to eat.

It takes some cajoling and bribery, but Epy ends up coming along with him, driving him to Pampanga to save Mon the bus fare though Mon does promise to pay for petrol later on. Epy is in a broody artistic mood so he’s wearing dark matching colours plus a beret, like some sort of Frenchman missing a funny mustache and a baguette. Mon says as much to him and Epy smiles with one corner of his mouth before rolling his eyes and training his eyes back to the road. He turns volume on the radio up and _The Boxer_ starts to play a little more loudly.

Epy hums along, quietly off-key.  

When they’re hungry, they stop for food at a gas station, eating their hotdogs in the car with the windows down and drinking their Mountain Dews on the road. There’s hardly any talking but Mon doesn’t mind. There are some people you don’t mind sharing long periods of comfortable silences with, and often that’s how you know what you have is true.

Mon wakes up with the jerk to the first drops of rain trickling down the windshield, the wipers making a squeaky noise against the glass, protesting against the friction. They drive some more as the roads continue narrow, flanked on either side by rows of farmhouses crumbling with neglect. The mountains look dark against the misty grey sky as rain continues to fall, sluicing the windows in shimmering lines.

Finally, after half an hour of getting hopelessly lost, they make their way to Mon’s cousin Neil’s house. It’s still raining so they run from where they park the car, kicking up puddles in their wake, arms shielding their heads. A gust of wind sends a lone plastic cup sailing in their direction and Epy kicks at it and laughs as he almost trips.  
  
They climb up the steps to Neil’s house. It’s in a nice neighborhood, lined with trees. The land is expansive, rolling hills and sprawling farmland, no other neighbour for miles.

Mon says, at the door, “There are two things you have to know about my family.” He holds up one finger. “First is that we love to eat,” he holds up another, “and second is that we drink as much as we eat.”

“That sounds… _fun_ ,” Epy says, sounding wary.

“You’ll regret saying that,” Mon laughs.

They ring the doorbell, and Neil comes out to greet them, his grin wide, wearing a t-shirt advertising the next presidential candidate. Neil hugs Mon, and he looks at Epy for a second before shrugging and hugging him too before shaking his hand.   
  
“This is my roommate, Epy.” Mon says when Neil releases Epy. He realizes it’s the first time he’ll ever be introducing Epy to anyone. It’s always been the other way around.

“ _Roommate_ ,” Neil repeats, like he has trouble wrapping his mind around the word. Then his eyes light up, as he claps both of their shoulders. “Are you two tired? Bet you are. Driving two hours from Manila. I’ll call Donna to cook something for you. The party isn’t till tomorrow so you still have all the time to rest.”

*

  
Because Neil doesn’t have a guest room, the two of them sleep on lumpy futons in his daughter’s bedroom. The furniture is sparse, but everything is pink: pink bed, pink sheets, a shelful of pink dolls and plastic teacups. The walls, at least, are a saving grace, painted a stark white.

  
They eat stir-fry broccoli and some orange pork dish Mon tries to wash down with a can of chilled beer. Epy hates the stuff, and keeps kicking Mon under the table. Twice his foot had missed and he’d kicked Neil on the shin by accident who had a mouthful of food and almost choked.

  
After dinner, their mouths minty with toothpaste, their shins sore, Epy rolls over in his futon and pelts Mon with a skittle. Neil won’t let them sleep on his daughter’s bed because he didn’t want them to get any of their _man smells_ on the covers.  
  
Now they’re on the hardwood floor, and it smells rich, like newly lacquered wood. It’s a little cold even with the windows closed. Epy pulls the sheets over his chin.

“Mon,” Epy hisses in the dark, and throws a Skittle into his hair.   
  
Mon turns on his side, facing away. He scrubs at his eyes. “I’m tired, Ep. I don’t even know where that Skittle’s come from. Have you been carrying it in your pocket, all this time?"  
  
“No, you  _idiot_ . I brought a bag of candy on the way here.” Epy kicks him lightly on the ankle. He’s scooted closer. Mon wonders when that’s happened. They’d been lying a foot away from each other, and now he can suddenly feel Epy’s breath ghosting across the back of his neck.  
  
“For,  _you know_ , emergency situations,” Epy continues. He shifts and his cold toes brush Mon’s foot. Mon nearly jumps out of his skin but stops himself in time. He can smell the warmth of Epy’s skin, the citrusy shampoo in his hair. He laughs, turning to face Epy, who pauses in the middle of slipping a red skittle between his teeth. His lips stain with dye.

Epy chews for a second before grinning, all teeth, and pillowing his head on Mon’s outstretched arm. Then he reaches over and drops a Skittle into Mon’s open mouth, laughing when Mon almost chokes.  
  
*

The next day, Neil’s house is full of people; it’s his 55th birthday and everyone and their mother is invited. He knows a lot of people so there are kids Mon doesn’t recognize screaming and running around the kitchen. He’s grown up with a big family so he doesn’t really mind but it’s jarring to keep having to introduce Epy to strangers and explain their _relationship_. People tend to get this strange look in their eyes whenever Mon gets to the part where he says they live together under one roof. They’re roommates; nothing more. It was funny the first few times but he can see how it makes Epy visibly uncomfortable.

Mon finds him in the living room, hanging out with the kids, beer in hand as he watches a game of Mario Kart on WII studiously.

“There you are,” Mon says, elbowing him in the side. “I was looking all over for you.” He curls an arm around Epy’s shoulders, looser now in his affections now that he’s had a few to drink. Epy gives him a look but doesn’t shrug his arm off entirely. He nods at the game on screen. “They’re about to finish. Wanna race?”

“Depends on what’s at stake.”

“Bet you 500 pesos I can beat you three laps.”

Mon knows he shouldn’t gamble. He’s already lost pocket money giving aguinaldos to children he’s sure weren’t related to him in any way. He started panicking as soon as they reached for his hand and started to _mano._ But the look in Epy’s eyes, the wry grin on his face – shit, he can’t help but feel suddenly giddy.

Of course, he ends up losing, but it’s well worth it to see Epy crowing and doing a victory lap around the living room. When he’s had enough running around, huffing in exhaustion, he drops next to Mon on the floor and flicks him gently on the nose. “Pay up, Confiado. Hand over the money.” He rubs his fingers together like a Shylock.

Mon shakes his head, reaching into his wallet and handing him five one hundred peso bills. As soon as Epy closes his fingers around them though, Mon grabs him by the front of his shirt, rolling him over onto his back, bracing himself against Epy on the floor. It’s only when Epy stares at Mon’s hand that Mon realizes he’s hiked Epy’s shirt high up over his ribs, that in doing so he’s left Epy’s pale stomach exposed.

Mon glances down, his knee between Epy’s spread legs, his hand fisted in Epy’s shirt, at the rise and fall of Epy’s chest as he breathes. He has a nipple ring. Mon has always known this, but it’s different when it’s staring him straight in the face, when he sees the smooth expanse of Epy’s chest, flecked with a starburst of freckles and moles, and can feel the heat of his skin seep through the cotton of his shirt.

He lets Epy’s shirt go in embarrassment. When he smoothes a hand over the hem, he feels Epy’s sharp intake of breath, his full body shudder. The skin underneath his palm is surprisingly soft.

Mon rolls off of him, saying nothing, lifting a hand to his forehead before elbowing Epy on the side. “Congratulations,” he says. “ _Bastard_.”

Epy snickers, before quieting down. “Hey,” he says. “You’ll still be paying for gas, later, right?”

*

As a rule, and to save himself the grief, Mon tends to avoid any and all of Epy’s invitations to parties. His friends aren’t people Mon would choose to be friends with, and even if they were the last surviving group of humans on earth, he would still rather choose to be alone.

Something about them rubs him the wrong way; maybe it’s how Epy changes when he’s around them, walking into a room one person and then coming out someone else.

Mon’s friends treat Epy fairly enough, on the odd days he has them over for drinks and late night work. Some of them think Epy’s a little weird, a little bit full of himself, a little bit unhinged with a few loose screws, but at least all of his friends are _genuine_. Mon can’t say the same of Epy’s friends. There’s not one person he trusts out of all them. Maybe Ira, who’d been in the aborted attempt of a band with Epy back in college. But that’s probably because he’s only met him once.

A day before New Year, Epy is invited to a party. Epy’s invited Mon to a few of them this past year but Mon’s made sure to decline all of them, knowing full well he isn’t going to have a good time. When Epy’s friends are over for Game Night, they make a general mess of the living room, leaving their cigarette butts everywhere, turning the volume up loud enough to wake the neighbours. They’ve had a few complaints but Mon’s always been able to sweet-talk the old couple who live next door to them.

Epy, in full flannel garb, fedora included, hesitates, there, by the door as he toes on his boots. He looks good tonight, in his tight jeans and with his hair curling every which way – no eyeliner, but his eyes look darker under a certain light.

“You sure you don’t want to go?”

Mon shrugs. He has nothing planned tonight and would rather stay in. Besides, New Year Parties aren’t really his thing. He’ll play a few games online, maybe drink a beer to celebrate, and pass out, all in that order. It’s a sad way to live but he’s feeling kind of lazy and wants to savour his last few days of freedom before he has to go back to work on Monday.

“Have fun,” Mon tells him, clapping Epy on the shoulder. “And don’t do something I wouldn’t do.”

Epy blinks, scrunching his face. “What wouldn’t you do?”

“Hey,” Mon laughs, pointing at him. “I resent that.”

Epy pokes his tongue out at him. Once he finishes prodding his hair into submission, he grabs his messenger bag from the hat stand, full of bright patches of obscure band names sewn onto the pockets and button pins covering the front flap. Epy hesitates again before dashing back to his room, his boots thunk thunking on the hardwood floor. He pushes a canvas into Mon’s arms, no bigger than a hardbound book, and Mon lifts it up, confused, before he sees that it’s a painting of him, sleeping on the couch, it looks like: his tie lolling to one side, his slack mouth parted, his hair avalanching his face. It’s beautiful. Not the subject, he’ll admit, he isn’t vain, but the use of color and shape.

“Your Christmas present,” Epy says, sounding embarrassed. “Before this year is over.”

Mon suddenly remembers that they’d never given each other presents after the fiasco at Epy’s house. They’d eaten their weight in pizza in front of the TV as soon as they’d come home, passing out on the floor next to each other, with the TV still turned on to the _Lord of The Rings: Return of the King_. The next morning, they took down the tree, packing it up in the storage closet where it belonged before resuming their lives.

“Wait here,” Mon says, and leaves to fetch Epy’s present. He rifles through his drawers until he finds what he’s looking for, the box pinched in corners from its many trips to various hiding places. When he presents it to Epy, Epy lets out a short laugh, tearing through the gift wrapping Mon has painstakingly taped together.

“It’s a knitted cap,” Epy says, rubbing the soft material between his fingers like he’s spinning for gold.

“Yeah.” Mon nods. He feels himself blush as he says it. “Like the one from that movie that you like, where they talked on the phone and the guy goes on a road trip after his father’s funeral.” He’d looked for the girl in a red hat, Mon remembers, and she was waiting for him at the end with an alternate plan. _No true fiasco ever began as a quest for mere adequacy._

Epy flushes, rolling his eyes. “ _Shit_ ,” he laughs. “ _Shit_. You remembered!”

“Why wouldn’t I? You made me watch the damn movie five times!”

“Only because you fell asleep the first four times.”

Mon supposes this is true. “I hope you like it, in any case. I mean, obviously it’s not the exact one from the movie but I saw it at a shop and thought…” He shrugs, not giving voice to the thought, to how he thinks about Epy from time to time and wonders what he may be doing.

“Yeah,” Epy assures him. “It’s really… _cool_.” He plucks off his fedora, settling it over Mon’s head before pulling the red knitted cap over and around his ears. He looks ridiculous, but wonderful, in this kind of light, his eyelashes fanned over his cheeks when he grins cheekily.

“How do I look?” he asks, batting his eyes for show and tucking his hair into the brim.

 _Like a dream_ , Mon thinks. _Like an absolute dream_.

*

It’s 8:30 when Mon gets the call, right when he’s in the middle of Season One of _Heroes_. Epy had left the DVD lying around, next to his stack of black and white remastered Blurays of old films. He puts the episode on pause, scooping his phone from the cushions and swiping his thumb over the button to accept the call. It’s Epy, his voice slurred but sounding happy and excited. Behind him, Mon can hear the white noise of conversation and music.

“Are you having fun?” Mon asks him, unable to help the grin creeping into in his voice.

“ _Are you?_ ” Epy asks. Mon pictures him with one finger plugged into his ear, ducking out of the party, and into the street outside – Epy, with the red knitted cap and boots. He’ll be the best looking one in the party, Mon is sure.

“It’s all right,” Mon tells him. “I’m watching _Heroes_ , Season One.”

“What episode are you on?”

“The one where Ando finds his favourite pay-per-view stripper.”

Epy laughs. Laughter always sounds longer on the phone, but there’s something about Epy’s laughs that seems soothing. “It’s fun here,” he says, “You’d enjoy it. Not that watching _Heroes_ isn’t fun, I fucking love that show to death. Are you sure you don’t want to go? It isn’t too late, you know. There are people here I’d like you to meet. We’re doing a screening of my friend’s short film before we count down to midnight. You may just have a good time.”

“I don’t know…” Mon says.

“Live a little,” Epy snorts. “Come on. I’ll text you the address and you can just Grab-a-Car your way here. It’s almost the New Year, Mon. The clock is ticking. Do you really want to spend the last few hours of 2015 watching _Heroes_ alone?”

 

*

Mon arrives 45 minutes later. The party is in an upscale neighbourhood, at one of Epy’s friends’ houses that screams of modern architecture. There’s a pool in the back, and the hedges are shaped in the likeness of zoo animals.

Mon feels underdressed in a black t-shirt he’d pulled out of hiding from the bottom of his drawer and the last clean pair of jeans he owns. There are already a handful of people there, trendy art-scene kids with dyed hair and hip haircuts, talking and laughing and holding colorful drinks.

Epy is easily distinguishable from the crowd, in his red knit cap and his flannel shirt. The party has spilled out into the front lawn where some people have laid out picnic blankets, smoking and drinking in turns. Some of them are younger than Mon, college kids, it seems like. The girls all look tough; everyone seems to be tattooed or pierced in some capacity.

Epy is in the center of a group of people, telling a story, while those sitting at his feet stare in rapt attention. When Epy’s eyes meet Mon’s, he blinks out of his daze before downing his drink in one go and padding over to Mon.    

He staggers a little, so Mon has to grab him by the elbow before he trips on his own feet.

“You made it,” Epy breathes.

“Just how much have you had to drink?”

Epy shrugs. “ _Enough_.” He pokes Mon in the chest, shrugging off his hand. “I like your shirt.” He pokes him again. “You should consider getting a haircut. The one you have right now makes you look simple. Provincial.”

“Thanks,” Mon says dryly.

“No problem.”

“Epy,” Mon begins, but stops because he isn’t sure how to continue. Epy grins at him before dragging him to the fray, the center of activity in these types of house parties, which is the cooler of beer in the kitchen. He passes Mon a can, and then reaches into his front pocket for a hand-rolled cigarette which he holds expertly aloft.

“I thought you’d quit,” Mon points out.

“These are not… _cigarettes_.” Epy, at least, has the decency to look abashed.

Mon nods in understanding. He hates feeling like a killjoy. Maybe he’s still a _probinsyano_ at heart. He pats Epy on the back before drinking his beer. “It’s all right,” he assures Epy. “Smoke if you want to smoke. I won’t get on your case.”

Epy rubs his elbows. “Nah, I think I’m good.”

“You sure?”

“All it does is make me loopy anyway,” Epy tells him. Mon nods again. He feels like he ought to say something meaningful with Epy refusing to look at him and staring at his shoes. He feels like maybe he should apologize. Lighten up, like Epy would say. “Hey—” he begins, but is stopped short when someone swings an arm around his shoulders.

*

It’s   _Lyle_ – Epy’s friend, the one with the goatee and deigns of becoming a full-fledged filmmaker. It’s his party, from what Mon can glean from the conversations around him. He’s wearing a turtleneck even though it’s thirty dregrees out and he smells like car freshener and stale cigarettes. Mon’s met him a few times before, mostly during Game Night. Another time when Epy had phoned Mon in the middle of the night to pick him up from Lyle’s because he’d been too drunk and stoned to drive. Never redeeming situations, but then again maybe this time will be different. Still, Mon digresses. Sometimes a bastard is a bastard is a bastard.

“Yo,” Lyle says to Mon. “Are you Ep’s roommate? Mon, right? Haven’t seen you in awhile, brother. How’s it going?”

Mon raises an eyebrow. Something about Lyle makes his skin crawl.

“Great party,” he says, lifting his drink in salute. That seems to be the answer Lyle is looking for because he grins a second later, his teeth white like a friendly vampire’s teeth. “You’re staying for the countdown right? We have a screening at 11:15. My movie debut.” He makes finger guns at Mon. “See you, brother.”

“Yeah,” Mon says. “See you.”

When he’s finally out of earshot, Mon downs his beer in one long pull.

*

It isn’t so bad, truth be told, though it’s not Mon’s usual crowd. There’s a college band setting up on the makeshift platform on the lawn, introducing themselves unironically as  _The Glory Howls._

There are a few scattered claps, a particularly long and protracted boo, requests to turn the music back on, but all of that is swallowed up by the grating screech of the band’s acoustics. “This is for all the lovers out there,” says the guy on vocals, winking salaciously at the reluctantly gathering crowd. He’s wearing flannel, like the rest of his tattooed and dyed brethren behind him, looking too young to have any right to be operating a bass guitar, much less front a band whose name is derived from a pun on glory holes.

The music starts up: slow and soothing, a song Mon recognizes but can’t name. It isn’t Rivermaya or Eraserheads so his mind comes up blank.

“It’s one of those cover bands isn’t it,” says Epy, covering his face in his hands. He shakes his head, grimacing, but his eyes are shining and Mon can see him trying not to smile. Epy sits up, knocking back his drink, suddenly giddy as the beat starts to pick up. “Oh whatever, I love this song. Tangina! It’s a classic. Come on! Get up. I wanna hear this one up close.”

Mon immediately begins protesting, casting a look around them. The thing about Epy is that he can also be a rowdy drunk. And he’s had a bit to smoke so his inhibitions, or at least most of them, have fallen away. He’s truly a sight to behold. Mon is worried he might start dancing and hurt himself in the process – a feat only Epy is ever likely achieve. “I think I’ll pass.”

“Really? This is a classic song, Mon. Don’t be a moodkiller.”

Mon blinks at him before downing the rest of his drink. It hits him like a punch – exactly what he needs to shake himself out of his dumb stupor. He grabs Epy’s hand to boost himself up, staggering a little, surprised when Epy doesn’t let go but instead squeezes back.

“Come on!” says Epy, laughing, dragging him to the front of the stage where a good number of people have already gathered in interest, drinks in hand, bobbing their head to the music. Mon is taller than most of them, probably a good few years older too, so he feels self-conscious. He hugs his arms around his chest, trying to place where he’s first heard the song.

Epy starts singing along, elbowing him in the side, eyebrows lifted, a few notes just slightly off key. His glee is infectious. When he catches Mon’s eye, he laughs and slips a companionable arm around Mon’s shoulders. He could be anything he wanted, Mon starts to realize – spoiled, shallow, easily bored – and Mon would still want him regardless. But want is too ephemeral; he’ll need a better word.

“ _And if a double-decker bus crashes in to us, to die by your side is such a heavenly way to die_.”

“The Smiths,” Mon says, astonished at having not recognized the song right away. And then he laughs, giving Epy a wide berth as Epy starts to sway to the beat. He looks like he’s moshing, or performing a particularly moving segment of an interpretative dance. “You’re amazing. You really are,” Mon tells him, “I wish you could see yourself. You’re great.” He means it too: Mon can’t take his eyes off him, though mostly it’s because Epy keeps listing and lurching from side to side.

“One of the things I’d like to believe I’m remotely good at,” Epy says over the vocals, slightly breathless. “Is dancing.”

“Oh, yeah?” Mon catches him by the hips after a particularly enthusiastic spin. “I don’t know, I can think of a few other things.”

Epy slaps him on the chest. “Shut up,” he laughs. “ _Shut up_.” He spins again and then lists to the side, nearly toppling over before Mon manages to catch him by the waist. This close, Mon can catch a whiff of his smell. Sweat covers his face in a delicate sheen; his face and ears are flushed.

“ _Oof_ —” Epy giggles.

“Gotcha,” Mon says. He squeezes Epy by the hip.

“You’ve got really nice eyes,” Epy observes, staring intently into Mon’s face. His breath smells like cigarettes and his nose is cold where it touches Mon’s cheek.

“You know not a lot of people know this about you because you look so scary all the time, but you’re really one of the kindest people in the world,” he says this before proceeding to throw  up on the grass and all over Mon’s best shoes.

 

*

Lyle has a spacious bathroom on top of an already spacious music room. He lends Epy a concert t-shirt and tells Mon to keep the flipflops.

They still smell a little bit like vomit when Mon finishes washing his shoes in the sink but at least the smell is occasionally masked by the stench of sweaty feet. Mon spends a good portion of the night blowdrying his shoes while Epy clutches his head and sips on a glass of iced water. He seems sober now for the most part, though he tends to stumble on his feet a fair number of times.

The party looks like it’s ages from winding down - stragglers keep coming in in ones and twos through the front door with each one more uniquely dressed than the last. Mon sees more flower crowns than he’s ever seen at a wedding, and guys in pants that end abruptly at the ankles wearing bright mismatched socks.

Epy drags Mon to Lyle’s fabled music room where Lyle keeps his grand piano among other assortment of music instruments. An electric guitar is propped in a corner and there are framed posters of rock bands on the wall - The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Queen, and Black Sabbath.

Epy sits at the piano, playing a few notes. “I took lessons, don’t you know,” he tells Mon as he strikes another key. “As a kid, my mother wanted me to be gifted and talented so she paid for lessons. Well, look where I am now. Do you think I’m gifted and talented?”

“You shouldn’t talk about yourself like that,” Mon tells him. He places a careful hand on Epy’s shoulder. “And yes, you’re more gifted and talented than you let yourself believe.”

Epy lets out a laugh. This time it sounds insincere. “Well, come sit, then, I’ll share with you what thousands of pesos in lessons has taught me.”

Epy starts playing the opening notes to Mary Had A Little Lamb. Mon laughs and laughs as Epy snickers and grabs Mon by the wrist, unfurling his left and pointing Mon’s fingers to the ivory keys. He presses them down in alternating patterns.

“Mary-had-a-little-lamb-,” he sings as each key is hit. “Its-fleece-was-white-as-"

“Epy,” Lyle says at the door, cutting him off.  

They both turn their heads to look. At the door, Lyle raises his eyebrows, tipping his drink back. Then he beckons Epy over with a crook of the finger. “You free for a minute? There are some people I’d like you to meet.”

Epy looks at Mon, then at Lyle before shutting the lid of the piano. “I’ll be back,” he promises.

Mon watches him leave.

*

Epy doesn’t come back of course but Mon doesn’t expect anything less. He finds his way back to the party through trial and error, getting lost in the number of rooms where some people have opted to have sex. By that time a huge crowd has gathered where Lyle’s movie will be screened. There are people sitting on the floor or standing in corners of the room carrying their drinks, hugging their dates, but none of them are Epy or anyone Mon recognizes.

He finds himself a spot next to the wall. Lyle appears before the projector, his sillouhette blocking the light. He raises his arms and the crowd whoops. “Thank you all for being here tonight,” he yells over the din. “I’m excited to be sharing my life’s work with all of you. Now without further ado—” He nods his head and when Mon follows his gaze he sees it’s Epy at the projector, fiddling with a remote. Epy nods back and signals with his fingers: one, two, three.  

Then the movie starts, opening to a cut of an empty sunlit street. The scenes are beautifully shot, strong lighting in some scenes set to ambient music. Mostly it’s closeup of faces and shots of random objects: parasitic worms, a single vine shoot growing through cement, red balloons drifting across the street, a human eye blinking rapidly. There’s not a word of dialogue – just the main character walking around looking morose, running his hand across the walls and watching cars drive past him on the road. At some point he meets a girl in a bear costume in a park. They sit on the bench and eat ice cream in the shade before he takes her home to his apartment and shows her his vinyl collection. They dance to operatic music in his bedroom with hardly any clothes on. Then he proceeds to have sex with her on the floor, just slightly out of frame. The movie ends abruptly when the main character steps out of the bedroom to smoke on the balcony. The camera focuses on his bloody hands.

Mon startles out of his thoughts when he hears the scattered applause.

It makes him laugh. “What do you think of the movie?” someone to his right asks him. Mon shakes his head, snorting. “You really want to know?” The guy nods; he has a lip ring – _of course_ – and the sides of his head are shaved.  Thankfully, he’s not wearing flannel, but a faux leather jacket and matching pants.

“It kind of sucks,” Mon laughs. “I feel like it just wasted my time. And why were there subtitles in French? What was the whole point of the girl in the bear costume? Why were his hands bloody? Did he kill the girl in the bear costume?”

“It’s a metaphor,” the guy explains. “ For love.”

Mon stares at him before blinking. “That movie is so full of metaphors it made no sense at all. It’s … kind of pretentious,” he mutters. Full of itself, he doesn’t say. There are other words that come to mind but he’d rather not offend any eavesdroppers. When he turns to excuse himself, he sees Epy and Lyle have been behind him all along. Lyle looks livid which means they’ve been there long enough to hear what he’s just said – so red in the face it raises several warning bells.

“Anong sinabi mo about my movie, chong?” He gives Mon a good hard shove on the shoulder.

Mon bristles when he bumps into a guy behind him. “That’s just my opinion, bud. It’s nothing against you.” He brushes his shirt where Lyle has wrinkled it with his fist. “Come on, it’s just a movie.”

“It’s more than just a movie, it’s a fucking masterpiece!” Lyle jabs a finger in his chest.

“Are you listening to yourself?” Mon says disbelievingly. He starts to laugh; he can’t help it. This guy is ridiculous. “You need to pull your head out of your ass, _chong._ ”

“Gago to ah—”

“Mon,” Epy says, stepping up to Lyle, blocking him with his body. “Mon, just go home. You’re making a scene.” He touches Mon on the arm but Mon shakes his hand off.

“I’m making a scene?” Mon repeats. He raises his eyebrows. He can’t believe this is happening. He looks at Epy then at Lyle. A small crowd of people has started to spectate, a few heads have turned in their general direction. What an unbelievable night, he thinks, fighting every urge to beat his fists bloody against something unyielding. He shakes his head, in disbelief. “So that’s how it is, then.” He nods his head at Epy.

Epy just stuffs his hands inside the pockets of his jeans, refusing to look at him in the eye. Some time in the evening, he’s lost his red hat. His hair stands up in one giant static frizz. It makes him look vulnerable, like a little kid.

“Thanks for inviting me,” Mon says, unable to hold back the vicious bite in his voice. “You’re right; I had a really unforgettable time.” He gives Epy one last look over his shoulder. “And in case I forget: happy fucking new year.”

Then he beats a dramatic exit.

*

So this is where the evening has lead: walking down an unfamiliar street in an even unfamiliar neighbourhood, stewing in frustration. It’s almost midnight. A few houses down someone lets out a whoop of joy and a string of fireworks goes off, lighting up the sky in red and blue flashes. Mon startles for a moment, before resuming his dejected walk as the lights fade from the night sky.

He doesn’t want to abandon Epy and leave but he’s smart enough to recognize a lost cause when he sees one. Between Mon and his friends it’s always been clear where Epy’s fealty lies. Epy never lets the two of them mix – too much friction, probably. Tonight is evidence of that, and frankly, Mon’s had enough. He hates that even matters what Epy thinks.  

He tries not to take it to heart but it’s easier said than done. When he senses someone behind him, he doesn’t turn to look, too focused on kicking at the pebble at his feet and watching it skitter a few feet away.

“Mon,” Epy says. Then more insistently: “ _Mon_.”

“What,” Mon snaps, whirling around to glare at him. Epy flinches but he jogs over to him, stopping when he comes within an arm’s reach. There’s so much Mon wants to say to him, but he isn’t thinking straight. He feels a headache curtaining down, tunneling his vision.

“You didn’t have to leave.”

Mon blinks at him then throws his head back to laugh. “Are you _fucking_ crazy?” he says. “You just told me to fuck off!”

“I know, and I’m sorry – I just. I didn’t want Lyle to kick your ass,” Epy says.

Mon huffs. It still makes his blood boil, thinking about that guy. Some people just get under your skin. “I can take that asshole down any day,” he grunts. “Any day, just tell me when.”

Epy throws his hands up in frustration. “This is why I didn’t want to bring you here. _This!_ ”

“Yeah, because you think I’m only around to cause trouble?” Mon says. Epy says nothing, neither confirming nor denying the statement. He stands there, stonefaced, hands hanging uselessly at his sides like a ragdoll. He tips his chin up, daring Mon to continue. Suddenly, Mon feels a fuse in him ignite, burst into flame but the ire is shortlived once he realizes there’s no point. “You know what? _Fuck you._ I’m tired of being your friend,” he says with a sigh. He feels his shoulders slump, deflate. “All it’s ever really done for me is given me grief.”

“You don’t really mean that,” Epy says, sounding hurt. “You’re drunk.”

“And you’re not?”

Epy doesn’t respond. “I can’t be your friend, Ep,” Mon says again. Before Epy has the opportunity to walk away, Mon touches his arm, and Epy turns his head again once Mon says his name.

“Epy,” Mon says, “Ep,” And Epy is wholly unprepared for Mon kissing him, quick, dry, the kiss lasting all of three seconds until the crackle and hiss of fireworks in the sky propel them backwards, away from each other. Then it’s over quickly. The sky dissipates into darkness, silence. Mon’s hand drops away from Epy’s face.

“Happy new year,” Mon says to him. His heart thumps high up in his throat but he tamps down the feeling until he feels nothing; numb. Then he walks away – from Epy, from everything.

*

Mon looks out the window, wondering what time it is. He’s smoked half a pack of Pall Malls – Epy’s choice of smokes, really – he’d picked up the habit the year he moved to Manila, and only ever smoked when he was stressed or full. He shuts the window, turns the AC back on, and dives facefirst into the covers, his feet hanging off the bed. He feels like crap. He falls asleep, waiting for Epy to come home, listening to the telltale rattle of the front door, for any signs of life, and feels like crap. When he wakes, not realizing he’d even fallen asleep, it’s already high noon, sun leaking sharply through the blinds and covering half his face.

Mon sits up abruptly in bed and groans once he realizes he has a migraine. He buries his face in his hands and wonders if this is any indication of how the rest of the year is going to be.

*

Mon spends the next few nights at friends’ houses, going home past Epy’s bedtime, making sure their paths don’t cross. He spends whole hours thinking about that evening, what could have happened had he not gone to the New Year’s party. If he had only kept his mouth shut about Lyle’s movie. If he hadn’t kissed Epy. He replays that last bit over and over again in his mind. There are several different ways the evening could have concluded, and most all of them could’ve ended with his own tongue inside his mouth. But what’s done has been done. And whether or not he has any regrets about it doesn’t matter in the least.

*

They don’t talk anymore after that, not like they used to: no more movie nights, or game nights, or nights where they order out for dinner and ask each other how their day has been. No more impromptu meetings at twelve in the morning when Mon catches Epy in the kitchen having a nightcap, redhanded with his hand inside the fridge reaching for the last tub of cheese ice-cream. Mon is almost grateful for the reprieve; he can divert his focus on things that actually matter, like putting more hours at work so he can take time off to visit his mother in Cebu. And he can’t look Epy in the eye anyway, much less imagine a conversation with him where they won’t be skirting around the issue.

Mon takes full responsibility for things spinning so deftly out of hand so he isn’t surprised if Epy probably hates him.

It all comes to a head when their paths finally cross one morning. Mon is getting ready for work and Epy is trudging in from an all-nighter, looking less than stellar in tight jeans and a leather jacket. He smells like a combination of bar smoke and gin. Epy pours himself a cup of coffee at the counter and Mon hears Epy behind him, puttering around for the sugar and milk, groaning as he swallows down his drink. The chair rattles across from Mon when Epy deposits his weight in it, clutching his face in his hands with a whinge. He looks exhausted, eyes rimmed red, skin flushed.

“How was your party?” Mon asks.

Epy lifts his head and squints at him through his hair. He doesn’t answer for a second. “Good,” he says carefully after a blink. “Thank you.” And then he asks Mon, eventually, how work has been.

“Same old, same old,” Mon tells him. Nothing new in terms of work load; he’s thinking of quitting his job, moving somewhere quiet. Maybe home, back to his mother. Or somewhere far away.

But he doesn’t say any of that. Last night he caught himself staring at the clutter of his room and thinking about packing everything up in a box. But maybe that’s too much of an overreaction. Maybe this can still be saved.

Mon continues to read the morning paper, flipping to the next page. He can feel Epy staring at him, the weight of an unnamable silence pressing all around them. “Don’t do that,” he says, without looking up.

“Do what?” Epy asks.

“Epy,” Mon says.

Epy shrugs and takes a small sip of his coffee. “I’m not doing anything, just drinking my coffee.” He lifts his cup to exemplify his point.

Mon looks up and gives him a small smile. The last few weeks have been a lesson in self-restraint. There are a multitude of things he wants to say to Epy, but now that they’re back to square one he’s lost the privilege.

“Seriously,” Epy says. “ _What?_ ”

Mon says nothing, folding the paper in sections before rising up from his seat. He isn’t in the mood to argue; it’s too early in the day for that, and if he doesn’t leave now he’ll miss his train, anyway. “I’ll be late for work,” he announces, though it feels like he isn’t talking to Epy at all but to the room at large. Epy nods. Even as Mon makes his way to the door, he can feel Epy’s eyes on his back.

*

Mon goes running the next morning. He puts on a pair of running shoes that has been in hiding for a long time and leaves before dawn has a chance to break, the sky a hazy dark blue over head, the early morning wind prickling his bare arms. He stops once he hits his first circuit, drinking from the water bottle he’d brought along with him, walking all the way back once it begins to lighten.

Running always clears his head. Back home when he was younger, he used to be on his school’s track team; he didn’t win any competitions, that wasn’t why he’d joined -- he’d just enjoyed the exertion, the fact that he could put all his troubles behind him and just focus on one singular goal. If he could outrun his problems, literally, he probably would’ve a long time ago.

When he returns to the building, he finds Epy staggering towards the gates, a ratty sedan scuttling out of the street having just dropped him off. His clothing is rumpled, his shirt inside-out.

Mon hesitates but walks over. Epy reeks of pot and alcohol. Epy peels an eye open groggily, stumbling over to him until Mon is close enough for Epy to rest his head on his shoulder. But he does none of that, instead he stuffs his hands inside his pockets and wobbles with every step. He looks terrible; his eyes bloodshot, his hair lank. He’d gotten it cut. Mon feels a strange sense of loss, remembering the uneven tufts of hair curling at the back of Epy’s neck, they it brushed his face when they hugged, sometimes, at the end of a long day or when Epy was feeling giddy about something.

“What happened to you?” he can’t help but ask. He points to Epy’s hair.

“You’re even worse than my mother,” Epy laughs. “She always loved my hair but I would tell her, no, never again. I look too much like dad. It made her cry all the time, when she looked at me. After he died, and all. It’s a good thing I don’t live with her anymore because she’d probably sink into a depression from just looking at me.” He taps himself on the nose, sniffing. “Can’t have that.”

“I guess not,” Mon amends. When Epy scrunches his nose at him, he says, “I just went for a run. Sorry if I smell a little.”

“I smell too,” Epy says. He falls quiet, as soon as they make their way to the lift. Epy punches a button with a thumb; Mon watches him, looks away, turns to him again. Pretends to drink from a bottle of water. “We don’t talk anymore,” he points out.

There’s a pause. “What else is there to say?” Epy asks. And then, “It’s all your fucking fault, you know,” he mutters under his breath. “You insulted my friend.”

“I guess I got carried away.” Briefly, Mon thinks it’s amazing how they can have two separate conversations all at once.

“Epy,” Mon says, because if he doesn’t say it now he never will. “I like you. I hope I’m allowed to say that.”

The elevator doors open with a cheerful ding; a foreign couple walks out with their dog and Epy glances up at Mon before stepping inside first. It feels like a long time that they just stare at each other without speaking, miles and years between them and Epy jabs at a button right before the doors close in Mon’s face. “Are you coming up, or what?” – annoyed and genuinely concerned like Mon hadn’t just bared his soul.

*

One week passes and then another, and it’s like they don’t live in the same house anymore. Mon hardly sees Epy; the light in his room is almost always off, and on the rare chance they bump into each other on their way to use the bathroom, Epy shuffles out of the way and lets him have it. They shouldn’t have to live like this. Theoretically, it should make things easier because then Mon can avoid any potential awkwardness a protracted interaction might bring, but all it does is make him feel guilty. He knows Epy has a difficult time already.

At the end of the month, Epy celebrates his birthday – no parties this time, just a quiet phone call from his mother and a cheque to splurge on whatever he felt like. Mon can see him through the half-open door: slouched in his reading chair with a pair of headphones on as he twirls the cheque in his hands. His shirt looks like it’s one size too small, like something he’d been wearing for a while and had outgrown, rucked slightly above his bellybutton. Meanwhile, Epy’s newly shorn hair looks like it hasn’t grown into itself just yet, sticking up in tufts like blades of nutgrass.

Mon gets a glimpse of the elastic band of Epy’s underwear as Epy shifts and his shirt rises further up. Mon knocks, and Epy startles, jerking his head up, slipping the cheque back into the envelope even though it’s too late for that now.

“What?” Epy asks, defensive.

“What do you mean ‘ _what’_? I’m here to talk.”

Epy studies his face cautiously, his mouth pulled into a moue. He sets the envelope aside along with his headphones; he doesn’t seem to be playing any music, anyway. “All right,” he settles on, sitting up. “Let’s talk.”

Mon obviously hasn’t thought this true. “You’ve been avoiding me,” he says.

“Well,” Epy concedes after a moment. “So have you.”

“I didn’t know it was your birthday,” Mon says, out of a lack of a better transition. It’s a vague statement; he points to the birthday card on Epy’s nightstand – from his mother, too, it seems like.

“Well now you know.” Epy looks anywhere but Mon’s face. “I guess this is the part where I tell you why I’ve been avoiding you.”

“I know why you’ve been avoiding me,” Mon says.

“Not entirely the reason you think,” Epy says, and then stands. He sits back down soon after before crossing his arms and rubbing at his elbows with his hands. “Do you really like me that way?” he asks after a second.

Mon shrugs. That is probably the understatement of the year. He forces a smile. “I’m starting to think maybe I made a mistake,” he jokes, but at the look in Epy’s face, he stops and shrugs again. “What do you want me to say, Ep? That I’ve been pining for you for months? If I could take back what I did, I would. I still want us to be friends.”

“Not what you said that night though,” Epy reminds him.

Mon rolls his eyes. He tells himself not to rise to the bait; Epy knows which buttons to push. They’ve known each other long enough. “I’ll move out if I have too.”

“That would be a little too extreme, I think—”

“Then what! Tell me what I have to do!” Mon doesn’t mean to yell. Epy is shocked into silence, and for a moment Mon thinks he’ll start to argue back. Instead, Epy picks up the card from the nightstand and turns it over in his hands. “It’s my birthday today,” he says in a soft voice, almost to himself.

Mon doesn’t know what else to say to that so he stares at him and blinks. “Happy birthday,” he says, finally.

Epy laughs. “You want to make it up to me?”

Mon is careful to answer that question, but in the end he concedes. That’s how it is with Epy anyway – he takes everything and concedes nothing. Maybe Mon is way in over his head. “Sure,” he says before he can regret it. “What do I have to do?”

*

They drive out of the city, to Epy’s dad’s final resting place. The road is a long flickering stretch and the sun is almost out, painting the sky pale pastel hues. Epy visits his dad’s cemetery every year since he’s died, he says, because they share the same birthday. He brings him fresh carnations, lighting a candle on his gravestone and pulling at the weeds growing unchecked around his grave. Epy kneels on the ground, getting his jeans dirty with mud and grass, but he doesn’t seem to care. Then he takes out the two cans of beer he’d bought on the way – opening both and toasting the gravestone. He pours some over the grass before he leaves.

After about an hour, they walk back to the car, stopping a few times on the drive home, once for gas, and then for food. It’s almost morning again when they make it back home, quietly stumbling through the living room and tossing the car keys into the bowl on the counter.

Epy settles on the couch with an exhausted huff. Mon gets himself a glass of water from the kitchen and hesitates, there by the door, before joining him. Epy turns to look at him, squinting at him with one eye. “Thanks for today,” Epy tells him.

Mon doesn’t even have to think about his response. “Anytime.” He puts his glass down on the coffee table. All the lights are off so the only light they have is coming from the street outside, seeping through the windows and highlighting how fraught the situation is. Or maybe Mon is thinking too much into it. It’s so quiet he can hear his own breathing, the clock on the wall ticking the seconds away. He closes his eyes and opens them a second later once he hears Epy shuffle closer, setting his head down on Mon’s shoulder.

“You’re my best friend,” Epy says quietly. “I hope you know I don’t ever want to lose that.”

When they finally kiss, with Epy inching his face up and Mon carding his fingers through Epy’s fine, short hair, Mon releases a sigh he doesn’t know he’s been holding. He presses their foreheads together and cups Epy’s cheek, grazing his cheekbone with a thumb. Epy shivers, his eyelashes brushing Mon’s cheek

“Please don’t take this as rejection,” Epy says.  

“I really don’t,” Mon tells him, and squeezes his eyes shut, hard. Then he kisses Epy again with the same ferocity he feels coursing through his bones – long and desperate and on and on.

*

Epy shucks off his shirt and Mon helps him out of it, running his hands up Epy’s sides before lifting the material over Epy’s head. There’s a moment where he does nothing but stare at the pale expanse of skin presented to him: the thin chest, the network of obvious ribs, the taut shape of Epy’s nipples and the silver ring adorning his right one. The long and slender neck.

Mon takes Epy’s face in his hands and kisses him again, trailing his fingers down the curve of Epy’s neck, stopping whenever Epy shivers, or starts to hesitate. He fears every time that he’s done too much, moved too fast, but Epy coaxes him to keep on going, his eyes closed as he tilts his head back, receptive to Mon’s touches growing bolder and bolder.

Mon rubs Epy’s hipbones with his thumbs as he unclasps the button of his jeans. They’re tight, practically melded into his skin and it takes some maneuvering before Mon has slid them off Epy completely. He has to roll Epy onto his back and kneel between his legs, which on the couch is a tough thing to do with there being little room. Finally, he tugs the material off Epy’s legs like he’s reeling in fish and Epy lets out a startled huff of laughter before he almost kicks Mon in the face.

Then Epy’s arms lift up, running up Mon’s sides to link around his shoulders. Other parts of him move too: his legs wrap around Mon’s waist to pull him close; his fingers slide through Mon’s hair, his nails graze the side of Mon’ neck, making Mon pant into his skin and shiver. His kisses taste tangy and sweet; Epy smells like a combination of pomade and shampoo. And his skin is soft, especially behind his ears where Mon kisses him the longest.

They move together fluidly, kissing, breaking apart, kissing again. Mon sweats even though the air conditioner in the room is on as Epy’s fingers work furiously to untangle his underwear from his legs. Mon leans back to watch him toe it off, one hand on the back of the couch, the other low on Epy’s ankle.

And there it is, the whole of him, finally revealed: the light dusting of dark hair on his legs and Epy’s smooth cock, the pale insides of his thighs, the port-wine stain there on his hip the size of a thumb in the shape of a small island - everything Mon’s never allowed himself to think about, even in his dreams. He can’t remember what he says next or does next, only that he remembers thinking: goddamn this is what praying must feel like. Because it feels like an experience unto itself, holy and sacred. And Epy’s laugh, his soft sighs, Mon kisses them from his mouth till their teeth knock together, unbuckling his belt and letting Epy push his shirt above his armpits.

“Do you have any condoms?” Mon asks him. Epy flushes and then nods before pointing him to the drawers where Mon also procures a tube of lube. He doesn’t ask Epy why or how long it’s been; he doesn’t want to ruin the moment. He climbs back on the couch where Epy watches him with keen eyes, leaning his weight on his elbows.

“Are you sure?” Mon asks him one last time.

Epy nods, once, before sinking back down on the cushions and spreading his knees with a soft but nervous smile.

Mon kicks off his jeans, his underwear, slipping on the condom and pinching the tip before unrolling it over his hard cock. He squeezes himself a few times, watches as Epy starts flexing his toes while he keeps himself spread wide. Epy palms himself with one hand while he preps himself up with the other, two slick fingers and then three, before he nods his head with a groan. Mon kneels between Epy’s open legs, poising the head of his cock against Epy’s opening.

Epy licks his lips, batting his eyes shut. “I’m ready,” he says, though his voice sounds small all of a sudden, nervous.

Mon nods, braces himself on the back of the couch, and pushes his hips forward, Epy’s body resisting upon impulse. Mon puts a hand on his hip to calm him and Epy relaxes incrementally. He presses a kiss to Epy’s forehead, flushed with sweat, hot despite the temperature in the room. He isn’t even halfway in yet and Epy’s already whimpering, eyes closed tight, fingernails welting Mon’s skin.

Mon wants to push forward, fuck into the tight wet heat, but he wills himself to wait, to calm his beating heart. He can hear it pulse in his ears, a steady drumming between his eyes. Thud, thud, thud.

Epy tilts his head, meeting his mouth in an uncoordinated kiss. Their noses press together awkwardly. Epy’s teeth almost cut into Mon’s lip. “Don’t move just yet,” he whispers. “I need a minute.”

Then he hugs Mon and rests his forehead against Mon’s shoulder. Mon waits, trying his level best not to push inside like he wants to. He rubs his nose across Epy’s cheek, buries his face in the fuzzy remnants of Epy’s short hair. Finally, Epy kisses the side of Mon’s neck and tells him to move. Mon inches forward again, keeping his pace steady, watching Epy’s face for signs of pain. His eyes are wet, but he nods for Mon to continue until, with a groan, Mon pushes all the way inside.

It feels so good that the leg Mon keeps braced on the carpet almost gives away. He leans over Epy and takes his face between his palms, kissing him from his forehead to his panting mouth, his free hand keeping Epy’s thigh pushed back and spread.

“Tell me how good it is,” Mon grunts. “Tell me.”

Epy nods again, mute, breath hitching as Mon pulls out again only to bury himself fully forward. Mon takes it as his cue to start rocking his hips, groaning each time his cock slides home. Epy is perfect – his body seems to have been moulded for Mon from clay. He’d grunt, half in discomfort, half in what Mon could only hope meant something good, each time Mon’s pace picks up.

“Go harder,” Epy hisses. “Harder, _please_ —”

Mon obliges, pulling Epy’s legs apart till he’s completely spread open, hands circling his pale ankles. Epy’s mouth falls open and his body arches up in a sinuous curve. Mon could watch him all day: stroking himself to completion, loving every second of Mon fucking him into the couch, trembling around Mon’s cock and saying his name like a prayer. He seems to enjoy a little roughness, moaning as Mon starts to piston his hips, steady jerks that bury Mon deep to the root. The couch starts to squeak; Epy shudders and bucks and trembles under the hull of Mon’s body.

“Mon,” Epy breathes. “Mon, please.”

They reach over simultaneously to pump Epy’s cock. Mon thrusts once, twice, short and pounding, and Epy comes on the third time, letting out a sweet strangled noise. His body shudders, clenches around Mon’s cock, gripping him tight like a glove.

Mon kisses him through the aftershocks of his orgasm, licking into his mouth, feeling him shake, rocking his hips frantically till he comes, too, seconds later, his face pushed into Epy’s neck, clutching him hard. Epy’s legs sink down on the couch cushions afterwards as Mon pulls slowly out of him, sliding off the condom and tying one end, chucking it at a plastic bin nearby and missing by a few feet.

Epy snorts, watching it hit the wall and descend the floor with a splat. He’s so warm under Mon, so pliant and beautiful that Mon has to kiss him again, once for good measure, and then another time just to see if he’ll dissolve into molecules. But this is real, and so is Epy, and it’s not something he can chalk off as single bad decision. It’s really happening. Now that the rush of orgasm has left him though, Mon doesn’t know quite what to do with himself. He feels like he ought to be on the precipice of great cataclysmic change. Instead, everything is at it was before. Nothing has really changed: the rest of the living room is quiet, nothing but the steady hum and hiss of the air conditioner, and Epy’s intermittent shuffling as he pillows his head on the couch cushions. Their clothes are everywhere on the floor, flung haphazardly on the back of the couches, behind the TV.

Epy lets him rest between his open knees and skims his fingers across the bumps of his spine, making Mon’s chest swell with a wave of... of overwhelming tenderness. For him, for this moment. He feels his eyes close all of a sudden. There it is again: the smell of Epy’s hair.

“Was it good?” he mumbles sleepily.

He feels the soft tremors as Epy lets out an unexpected laugh. The band of heaviness behind his eyelids begins to relax, the syrupy warmth of exhaustion spreading behind his eyes. When he opens them again, Epy is watching him, careful, but there’s a warmth in his eyes Mon has never seen before and it makes him want to kiss him again till neither of them can breathe.

“Yeah, Mon,” Epy says, pushing Mon’s hair out of his eyes, smiling a soft smile. “It was really really good.”

*

Epy thinks they’re going to be okay. The thing about Mon is, he just goes with the flow – it’s an enviable trait that Epy wishes he has. He’s always been the type to get hung up on passing details.

A few times when Epy wakes up nearly naked next to Mon, he pointedly tries not to run, fighting every instinct in him telling him to give into his panic. It’s been two weeks since they started this – whatever it is. But somehow it feels like a lot longer than that.

*

Mon is sitting cross-legged on the living floor, typing up a report on his laptop, one of Epy’s headbands pushing his hair back from his face. It’s a Saturday. The TV is  turned on to the news but neither of them is watching. Epy is sat behind Mon on the couch, fiddling with the settings of his new Instax camera, a recent indulgence and hobby.

Epy watches Mon before putting his feet up on Mon’s back, rubbing in soothing strokes with the arches of his feet and resting his weight comfortably between Mon’s shoulder blades.

Mon grunts noncommittally. He puts his laptop away for a moment, next to the can of Red Bull on the coffee table, and then awkwardly crawls across the floor to seat himself next to Epy. “You want me to order food for you for Game Night?”

Epy shrugs, turning his attention to his lap, closing his eyes. He looks up when Mon’s hand covers his knee. He doesn’t push it off but he does nothing about it either which is a standing metaphor for everything in his life. He’s twenty nine years old; he waits for things to happen to him. But maybe he’s waited long enough.

“I think I’ll be postponing Game Night indefinitely.”

“All right,” Mon says after a pause. “ _Okay_.” And then Epy’s heart pushes painfully out of his ribs when Mon catches his chin in one hand. Without prompting, because of course, that’s how he operates. Epy doesn’t know why he expects anything less.

“If we’re not doing Game Night with your friends, I can always try to beat you at Mario Kart,” he jokes but Epy pulls him forward by the front of his shirt and tells him to shut up. “We’re having a moment here,” he says. “Don’t ruin it.”

“All right,” Mon concedes with a laugh. He reaches out and touches Epy so softly on the cheek and then kisses him, once, twice; the third time long enough that by the time he pulls away, Epy’s sigh makes his entire body shudder and curl with unexpected warmth. It’s a bit like getting drunk: everything feels sharper and dream-like all at the same time. Just like how Mon makes Epy feel sometimes – like walking on a tightrope.

“I thought I had you pegged but you continually surprise me,” Mon says, before he rolls Epy onto his back. Epy is pinned under his considerable weight as Mon brings their faces closer together, rubbing his thumb across Epy’s bottom lip until it gives and parts under his fingertip.

“Epy,” he says. “Epy, look at me. _Look_.” When Epy does just that, opening his eyes, he sees Mon with the camera, about to take a picture of him. There’s a blinding flash of light, and then sunspots are dancing in Epy’s vision, making him pause and blink rapidly. One, two, thr—

then Mon kisses Epy again, so soft Epy can hardly stop himself from smiling, or wrapping his arms around Mon’s broad shoulders to pull him close.

The silver cross Mon wears around his neck swings with his every movement. Epy catches it in his mouth in the approximation of a kiss and tugs it forward with his teeth.

  



End file.
